Real
by Penny
Summary: Completed with epilog- Dawn and Spike travel to the Past and Meet with William the Bloody and Dru. Reposting in Chunks -Final Chapter will be posted soon
1. Default Chapter

**Title: Real**

**Author: T.Penny**

**Disclaimer:** BTVS characters are owned by Joss Whedon, I'm just borrowing them

**Spoilers:** None that I know of. Set sometime in the future, post season 7.

**Note:** Please, please give me feedback, the words all shrivel up and die without it!

**Real**

~Dawn ~

Friday night, I thought. Damn it, why am I home alone? It's my birthday. I should be out partying, not stuck up here in the attic painting.  The light is almost gone anyway, I might as well quit.  I swished the brush in turpentine to remove the last of the pigment and dried it with a soft rag. 

I looked at the paint caked under my nails and sigh.  Splotches of umber and alizarin crimson made it look like I have dipped my hands in blood.  I'll have to be careful going downstairs to the sink to make sure I don't get paint on the walls.  

I step back and use the last of the fading light to look at the painting before me. It is nearing completion, and like the others stacked around the edges of the room it will soon packed away to the gallery. What others see in my work still baffles me. My work is selling, and the critics seem to love it, but I don't see why. My friends kindly called my work fantasy when they can bring themselves to look at my paintings at all. My nearest and dearest know better. These pictures of hell, portraits of demons, and the ravages of death are as true as any photo. 

It seems impossible to imagine my mother's old gallery handling my work. I wonder what she'd think of it, but if she was still alive I probably wouldn't have started painting. My sister's lover calls my work therapy, and his answer is the closest to what I know in my heart.  It was his money that bought me my first oils, and his urging that forced me to paint what I saw in the abyss. His voice and his pain where what forced me to live; what kept me from killing myself.  

            He is my muse, my inspiration. His stories come to life under my hand. I beg him for them, those tales of past horrors. What he crafts with words, I immortalize in paint. I use him, but it is an equal exchange, value for value. In the sullen quiet of the daylight world, a world that he is forbidden by his very nature; I become his priest, the confessor who hears all his past sins and doesn't judge.  Sins he dare not share with my sister for fear that it will remind her of what he was and still is.

I looked again at the painting before me, focusing on it, examining the brushwork, and my use of shadow.  I hate it; I hate the darkness in it.  It makes me want to take a pallet knife to it; to slash it, and tear it to pieces.  I can't deny its power though. Power is what we all crave. I may not be a witch or a slayer, but I have my own magic. I have the ability to draw the viewer in to my world, to make so real that they forget to breathe for a moment. That's power. 

I can hear them gathering down stairs. I have wasted too much time, now I will not be able to escape this house without having to deal with their birthday wishes. I hate my birthday. I want to shout, "It's not real. I'm not real." They think I've gotten over that; the fact that I was made and not born. I hate to disappoint them, but I never will get over it. It's part of what makes me who I am.  

I have a dream that I think maybe the moment of my actual birth. At first I am floating in darkness above the earth, there are no others like me. I am alive, shimmering and powerful. I can mold myself into anything I choose; become anything I see. A change occurs, a bubble, a bright iridescent bubble appears capturing my attention. I examine it from all sides, wondering how it was made, and where it came from. From inside I can vaguely hear the sound of voices calling to me. I enter it and immediately realize it is a trap. I fight until I'm exhausted, but I can not break free. Then I wake up.

I have lost hope that anything but death will make me real again.  

~Spike~

 "Dawn, nibblet, are you up here?" I call as I push open the trap door. I can see her bare feet, her long tanned toes, and her tender arches. My eyes travel the length of her long legs until they are blocked by the canvas she stands behind. I can see she is lost in thought, and I move quietly to where I can view her work.  I am disappointed, I keep hoping that one day I will see a still life, or a landscape, instead I see only myself as I hunt some nameless woman. It amazes me how she can capture the dank despair of London streets a hundred years before her time.  

There was a time when I modeled for her; it gave me a real thrill to see my face appear as she worked the canvas, but now…. Now I avoid her work, when I can. I am not sure what I see there, beneath the layers of paint and canvas. Is it my darkness, or is it hers that is reflected there? I have cautioned her not to use my face too often, and she makes enough changes so that I do not have to fear when we go to her exhibitions. 

She shivers when I touch her arm to gain her attention. The backlight from the dormer windows that Xander installed, halos her form. She looks as ethereal as one of her own paintings. "Dawn, it's time to come downstairs and clean up, everyone will be waiting us at the restaurant."

"Where's Buffy?"   

"She said she'd meet us there."

"She'll probably get tied up in something and won't show."

I try to reassure her that her sister will make it, but we both know the odds. 

Finally she tells me that she will be down in a few minutes.

I wait and watch the telly until the news signs off.  Impatient, I shout, "Hurry it along will you." There's no answer. I check her room first, and then the bathroom.  There are no signs she has even been in them recently. I pull the ladder cord to the attic, but she's locked it. It serves only to delay me a few seconds. 

I can smell the blood even before the trap door finishes crashing to the floor. I spy her crumpled form beneath the windows. I almost slip on the remains of a glass bottle in my hurry to get to her. She holds a piece of bloody glass in her right hand, and her left hand lays in an ever widening pool of blood. Her eyes stare at me accusingly. 

"What the hell do you think you are doing? Don't you know that death doesn't solve anything in this family?" I grab her wrist and reach behind me to the stack of clean rags. She begins to fight, and her arm slips from my grasp, blood spurting across my face and hair. I end up pining her, straddling her while I bandage her wrist.

"Why couldn't you just let me die?"

"If you really wanted to die, nibblet, why did you try to kill yourself while I was here?"

"I'm not real, Spike. This isn't real, just let me go." 

"What is it with you Summers' women? I can't feel, I'm not real, Spike fix it. What the bloody hell do you think I am; a blasted miracle worker?" I can hardly think. I am so angry. How can I convince her that she's real? I can think of only two ways, kill her or make love to her, and if I follow either of those thoughts I might as well stake myself because I couldn't live with the consequences.  

~Spike~

            I've been sitting here for hours, and the blasted doctors refuse to tell me anything about Dawn, 'cause I'm not kin. They'd tell that fuck of a father of hers, but not me.  I tell you, dying young has some drawbacks; sometimes it makes me want to give the old hair a few strands of gray just to get some respect.  Respect! There was a time I'd have bashed a few heads in, before I took this kind of treatment.  Damn Buffy to hell for turning me respectable. 

Personally, I hate hospitals. Hate 'em from the hard blue plastic seats, to the antiseptic stench of the place, but a lot of vamps love 'em.  Public property means that if you're quick and sneaky enough you can come and go as you please. Refrigerators here are stocked with lovely gourmet delicacies like AB neg., and even the live ones are relatively placid and nonmobile.  No one around here notices a little extra blood loss as long as you don't drain 'em dry too often.  

I loath hospitals, but I probably don't hate them as much as Buffy does. If ever a girl has been dealt some trauma in this place it's her. I can't help but wonder if that's why she hasn't shown up yet. I sent Xander out hunting for her.  You'd think, with all those nice slayerly powers of hers, she'd know her little sis was in trouble.

I wad up the Styrofoam coffee cup and aim it at the waste can. Miss. The old dragon guarding the desk shoots me a dirty look so I flip her the bird.  I can not sit still any longer. Pacing will at least keep me from ripping the place to pieces.  I stride back and forth in front of the windows over-looking the parking lot, keeping my eyes peeled for Xander's truck. Eight paces forwards and eight paces back. I try to keep my feet within the black and white tiles. The repetitiveness calms me so that I can think. 

I heard them call for a psych. consult. I wonder what the brain squeezer will think of our little Dawnie. Hope they can figure her out, 'cause I still don't know what to do for her.  Personally, I think my idea has some merit. Got no ethical problem with turning her. Give her what Dru gave me. Change of view point might be just what she needs to break her out of that fixation on being real.  Know Buffy would stake us both in a heartbeat though. That's the consequences I was talking about. Same with making love to her, lots of earthy power in sex. It grounds you real good to the here and now. Nothing wrong with the act itself, but the consequences would still leave me a big pile of dust. 

~Dawn~

 "So Miss. Summers, do you understand why the doctors requested you speak to me?"

I nod my head yes. I understand that they think I'm crazy. I think I am too some times. 

  "Let's start off with some simple questions. Name?"

"Dawn Summers"

"Can you tell me the month and day of the week?"

"June and Friday"

"Dawn, can you tell me where you are?"

"The Sunnydale Memorial Hospital emergency room."

"Good. Now would you care to tell me about how you cut yourself?"

Her eyes were very kind. Eye contact direct, but non-threatening. I can tell that she was good at what she did. Unfortunately for her I don't feel like talking, too many secrets to keep, most of them not mine. I play with the ends of the bandage covering my forearm. Twenty one stitches- the little Pakistani doctor who stitched me up told me I nicked the artery.  He said I would have died if my friend hadn't brought me in.  Some friend.

"Dawn, let me read you some information from your hospital records. In the fall of 2001 you were brought in for the treatment of similar cuts on you forearm.  There is a notation here that your mother was being treated for a brain tumor at the time. How is she doing?"

"She's dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that. It must have been a difficult time for you. You were what, only 15 at the time?

"I was 14, and it was a long time ago." 

She paused; I guess she was waiting for me to add something. I gave her the look I'd perfected on Buffy that usually deterred her from asking anymore questions. She must have been more immune, though, because she continued almost immediately.

"I have also read that later that same year you were brought to the hospital by friends who reported that you had been kidnapped and tortured. That must have been very traumatic. Did the police ever catch the people who did that to you?

"No." I refused to give her anymore. I'd just have to make up lies anyway, best just to keep my mouth shut. 

 "Then within six months you were back in the emergency room with a broken arm.  Following that there are two more visits involving cuts and sustained blood loss. Do you see the pattern I am following here?"

"I just cut myself, that's all. I broke a bottle of turpentine and I cut myself on the glass. That's all that happened."  I glared at her.

"Dawn, answer me honestly, if I were to discharge you right now, is there any possibility that you will hurt yourself again?"

I pause too long before answering. I can tell she knows I am lying when I say that I won't hurt myself. 

"Dawn, I think you are suffering from something called PTSD- Post traumatic stress syndrome.  I want you to listen to a list of symptoms and see if you feel like these describe what has been going on in your life. 

"You may be having recurrent distressing memories that overwhelm your daily activities. These are often called flashbacks- they can be quite intense.  Your heart may race, you might cry for no reason; you may even experience physical pain."

Ok, check number one. They aren't as frequent as they were right after Glory, but every once in a while I just panic for no reason. I can remember a couple times real vividly.  Once on an escalator at the mall, I just lost it. I stood there at the top trembling and crying. Luckily, I was with Tara and she didn't ask any questions. She just led me to the food court and plied me with sweets until I felt ok again.  The second time it hit I was reaching into the kitchen drawer getting a knife out to cut a sandwich. I cut myself that time, too. Trying to get away from… What was I trying to get away from? My eyes slide to the corner of the desk as I try to recall.  The doctor's words break my train of thought, and I am pulled back to the present.

"Sleep is another common area of disturbance. If you are avoiding sleep due to recurring dreams; this increases the odds that you are irritable, angry, and depressed."

Check number two. The dreams are weird, the images shatter and reform, like a kaleidoscope.  They're all mixed up: time, places, family, and friends. They are never the same, but they all seem to be variations on a theme. A tide of blood seems to surge and swell through them covering everything and everyone. Each time I reach for my brush the dreams ooze out on to the pallet, mixing with the paint. What can I tell you- nightmares sell. 

"You may feel detached from you friends and family. People suffering from PTSD frequently blame their loved ones for not being there, and at the same time resent them for trying to protect them after the fact. They often feel disconnected with the future, and have difficulty adapting to new situations."

I feel embarrassed as I listen to this new litany of ills. I recognized myself as well as my sister in her description. It's not like I want to be acting like ungrateful bitch, but I'm so angry, frustrated, and afraid that all I can do is explode.

"Dawn, I can tell from the expression on your face that some of those symptoms hit home. I'd like you to consent to stay for a few days. There are ways to treat PTSD, and medications I'd like to try you on.  If you stay, we can help you sleep and we can try to make sure you don't feel like hurting yourself again. How does that sound?"

Day 1

Case notes:  

            Pt is a 19 y/o Caucasian female, oriented x3.  Pt was brought to ER by male friend who reports that Pt cut self on a broken bottle. Injury resulted in laceration of the L radial artery:  Pt denied suicide attempt, but refused to contract not to harm herself.  Interview and review of existing records leads to a DSM-IV Axis I classification of major depression and a tentative Axis II diagnosis of PTSD. (see Pt file 567-89-2304) I recommend a 3 day in house evaluation 2° to possible suicidal ideation. Rx: Paxil 30mm BID, Tylenol 150mm- as needed for pain.  Dr. T. Laurence, MD

~Dawn~

"Don't tell me what to do", I say softly.  The stress of this telephone conversation makes me cold. Of course that may be due to the thin hospital gown I'm wearing. I wear another over the top like a robe, but even two gowns aren't enough to fight off the chill of anxiety. Not to mention the draft that floats up from underneath. 

"I won't!" How can she do this to me every time we talk? Her guilt smothers me at times. She lays it on the way I re-gesso a canvas. The thick strokes of white hide what lies beneath. What lies beneath my surface? I don't know- that's what I want to find out. 

"No. We already talked about this at the hospital. The doctor said I needed to stay. I want to stay." The words come without censure. I try to focus on her demands, but it's too difficult. The medication they've given me is making it hard for me think. My thoughts whirl like a kaleidoscope- disjointed and fractured. Maybe it's just as well; if I can't think then I can't feel. And I don't want to feel.

"I don't want to lie anymore." My eyes examine the hand lying in my lap. I feel alienated from my own body. It doesn't feel like it belongs to me. I find myself thinking about how I would draw it. The paint incrusted cuticles, and ragged nails make me wish for some paper and charcoal- or maybe pastels would be better.  The blue of the nail beds cries out for a pale dusting of chalk to tell of its chill. My knuckles are white with strain. I tuck the phone between my shoulder and my ear. Massaging my hand, I try to force some blood back down into it.

"I need to tell someone, Buffy. Can't you understand? You have the Scoobies; I haven't had anyone I could tell." I can't help but tune her out. This conversation feels all too familiar. Variations on this theme have been repeated on a monthly basis throughout high school. She's right in some respects; there is no way I could have physically protected my friends, like she did hers, but the knowledge of what is really out there might have kept them from making some stupid mistakes. She's always managed to convince me in the past, but no more. I need this. 

"Yes, I know I have you and Spike, but it's not the same." 

"No, I didn't want my friends to become targets.  Dr. Lawrence won't be a target.  She can't tell anyone. I've got her promise, and she gave me her code of ethics to read, too."

"I've asked her not to tape our sessions, and I get to read her notes before she submits them."

"I can't listen to you anymore.  Let me speak to Spike." I hear her in the background telling him to talk some sense into me. 

~Spike~

            The sunset fills the sky with oranges and pinks; it looks like the background of one of her paintings. I stop and stare for a few minutes before I head out the door for the hospital carrying Dawn's overnight bag. Buffy packed for her, but she was so ticked when she did it that I rechecked it. Glad I did too.  It blows my mind that after all these years of raising the kid that she still doesn't know her. Oh, she got all the essentials in- jeans, tee-shirts, underwear, jammies, and the like, but not a single tablet of drawing paper or a piece of charcoal.  And she forgot her diary completely.  

I feel a strong urge to break into that diary and read it. I hold it in my hand and remember when she bought this particular one.  It has a basket full of kittens on the cover and stupid brass lock that could be opened with a paperclip. She laughingly picked it out from among hundreds that were more age appropriate, and asked me if I thought her words were worth that much. She kept cracking bad puns about me being hungry for her thoughts. Stupid teenage stuff, she was just trying to push my buttons. 

            Teenager, shit! We all just kept thinking that this was just a phase she was going through. We'd solve one problem, like the shoplifting, and then we would be confronted by another problem. If wasn't picking the locks, it was hacking into the school computers. She just kept getting caught. It was an attention thing, but I kept thinking that once her paintings started selling she would settle down. Realize she had some value.

Damn it! Bloody chit just doesn't get the point that it doesn't matter where she came from. Can't get it through her thick skull that Buffy wouldn't have sent her back even if she could have. All she sees is the problems and inconveniences that she caused by just existing. I've tried to tell her; tried to point out all of the good she's done. Like helping her mum, and keeping Buffy grounded when she wanted to die, but it doesn't matter 'cause it never came from the right person. 

The gray robes didn't do any of us a favor by using Buffy bits to make Dawn. They are too damn much alike. Never saying what they mean, blocking themselves off from their own feelings and thoughts until they're surprised when somebody calls them on it. That seems to have been my calling of late. Not that it gets me anything. When I piss Dawn off I never know what's going to happen. Stuff goes missing, she writes a virus that wipes out all my computer passwords, 'If ever she and Dru would team up, they'd destroy the world with their vindictiveness. At least Buffy only hits me.

Now there is this crap. I wonder what I am letting myself in for at the hospital?

~Doctor Lawrence~

 "Welcome, Mr….? I'm Dr. Lawrence", I announce as I extend my hand toward him. _Goodness__ his hand is so cold. This must be a stressful situation for him. Leather duster, jeans, and combat boots- well I predict that there's not much respect for authority there.  _

"Call me Spike." 

_Umm….He leans in, offers a little flirty smile like we are all in collaboration. I don't think so. Handsome guy though- sister's boyfriend. I wonder if there's not some jealousy on Dawn's part? It would be understandable, if they are as close as she says. _

"Well, umm…Spike, Dawn asked to have you present during this session, but I thought it best that we meet for a few minutes before-hand to go over some ground rules. I wanted to let you know upfront that I am not in favor of having you here this early in Dawn's therapy. However, Dawn insisted that she needed you here before she would talk about what is going on in her life." _I wonder why?___

"I want to caution you that anything that is said in this room needs to remain between you, Dawn, and me. Please do not discuss these things with Dawn's family or friends unless she gives you permission."  

"Now, if you'll have a seat, I'll ask the nurse to bring Dawn down."

Spike seated himself on the arm of the leather couch, swinging his foot nonchalantly. Sanctimonious snit; if Dawn wanted him here to throw a good scare into her he'd be happy to oblige.

Dawn felt her eyes bug out as she entered the room; the jerk was standing right in front of a mirror.  She gestured franticly for him to sit down, and looked back at Dr. Lawrence to see if she had noticed. The doctor had this befuddled expression on her face like she couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. Then her mouth dropped open and she began to back toward the door. 

When Spike chose to he could move faster than eyes could possibly track. In a split instant, he was at the good doctor's side; firmly assisting her back into the room, and seating her in the chair behind the desk. After making certain she would stay put, Spike went and stood in front of the door, blocking any escape attempts. 

He looked over at Dawn. She glared at him with a stare that would have made Medusa proud. Her hands were on her hips, and her mouth was wrinkled up like she had just eaten an entire lemon, rind and all. He made a mental note to hide some of his more breakable treasures, before she came home.

  He gave her a rakish grin and shrugged. "Well, platelet, you said you wanted to tell her.  I'd say you have her undivided attention now."

Giving Spike a disgusted look; Dawn turned back toward the doctor, and said, "I need to prove to you that some of the things that people call supernatural really do exist, and that magic is real. I figured you'd never believe me without some proof, and Spike is the easiest and most concrete piece of evidence I can think of."

 "So, welcome to my world." Dawn sat down in the chair across from the desk and waited.

 I_ can't seem to stop staring at the… the thing that stands guarding my office door. I glanced at the mirror across from him. There is still no reflection_. _I'm going crazy, just like one of my clients. My voice shakes as I finally find the nerve to reply. Turning to my leather clad guard I ask, "What are you?"_

"He's a vampire. You know, the blood sucking undead."

I swivel around to face my client. Dawn looks pale, and upset. _I wonder what I look like to her?_  

My gaze was locked on his face. Cranial ridges rose as his face shifted and re-formed. He smiled, baring his fangs. _The smile was not meant to be comforting. I literally felt my blood run cold. This is the first time I have ever really understood the meaning of that phrase._

"Spike quit it!" Dawn admonished.

"Dr. Lawrence, Dr. Lawrence look at me!"

_I try to by my eyes won't focus. I feel like I'm going to faint. The feeling makes me irritated at myself. I haven't fainted since fifth grade choir, when I forgot and locked my knees. I refuse to let myself be intimidated by an overgrown adolescent dressed in leather. If he was going to hurt me he would have already done so. I order myself to breathe. Five deep breaths from the diaphragm, just like they taught us in biofeedback. I feel like I've just found out the world is flat and accidentally sailed right on over the edge._

"Don't worry, he won't hurt you. He won't kill anyone. 

"Hey, watch whose secrets you're sharing."

_Their arguing has given me time to pull myself together. I've had people tell me weirder things than this. Of course they were psychotic at the time, but never mind, the hallmark of a good therapist is the ability to meet the client where they are._

"Dawn, you've gone to a great deal of trouble to reassure yourself that I would believe what you have to tell me. I think it's time that you told me what brought you to my office."


	2. the paint

Case Notes:

            Pt participated in a 45 minute individual session in the company of a male friend. Pt discussed what she knew of her origins. Because of the unusual circumstances surrounding her birth, Pt expressed concerns similar to an individual who has been adopted. In addition Pt seems to have serious abandonment issues stemming from multiple incidences (ie. parental divorce, maternal death, and sibling withdrawal and depression) The Pt had difficulty identifying the current trigger for her depression, and anxiety. Recommend participation in depression/PTSD group, and art therapy. Continue meds as stated. Dr. T. Lawrence, MD 

~Dawn~

I sit sketching on a sheet of computer paper with the black felt tip pen the art therapist had provided. The paper has a kind of art deco border around it with ornately printed titles that say: house, person, and tree. According to the therapist I am supposed to draw one of each and then turn them in.  If this is art therapy, I'm not impressed so far.

I decide to start with the person. The old fashioned font reminds me of that Victorian illusion; the one where the woman sits in front of the mirror, and if you turn it one way you see a skull and if you turn it another you see a beautiful young woman. I block in the basic design, wishing I had a pencil. Reflections, reflections; am I the woman or the skull?

Thinking of mirrors makes me think of Spike. I know the jerk stood right in front of that mirror on purpose. The session had not gone the way I had planned. I wish I'd had more time to prep her, ease her in a little. I wonder how freaked she is? 

            I draw myself half turned toward the mirror so that just the barest hint of my features show. Then I add a table lamp and plot how the shadows will fall. I feel like I've lived my whole life in shadows; fake memories and all. Well at least the monks were consistent.

  The screams of the old woman across from me pierce my concentration, and I jump in shock. My pen jerks across the page, the line cracking the mirror. Before I fully comprehend what's happening, the paper is ripped from my hands. Flinging myself backwards I raise my arms in defense.  

The old woman starts to attack me. "Skulls", she screams, pointing at me with her bony hands, "skulls and shadows". "She's going to get me. Don't let her get me", she pleads. An orderly catches her by the shoulders and leads her from the room

Sandy, the art therapist, places her hand on my shoulder startling me for a second time. 

"Don't let Mrs. Corbin upset you Dawn. Sometimes when she gets really depressed, she gets paranoid. She didn't mean anything by it.  You'll see. She'll get her shock treatment, and she'll be just fine tomorrow." 

~Doctor Lawrence~

 I examine Dawn's drawings that the art therapist has shared with me. I think I'll have her try to interpret them before I share my thoughts with her.  She's really quite a fine artist. These drawings are almost good enough to frame, but it's not the quality of the work that really interests me; it's the symbolism and the feelings they express.

"Come on in", I say in answer to the tentative knock at the door.

She pokes her head in the doorway, long hair swinging. I wave my hand toward the chair. "Please sit down. Would you like something to drink?" She shakes her head no. 

She's gone all silent and uncommunicative, probably waiting for my response from yesterday. _Ok, brain, let's come up with something truthful and supportive; if I'm anything less than honest I'll lose her._

"Dawn, I wanted to thank you for introducing me to your friend. I won't pretend I wasn't scared, but you really did do me a favor.  You opened a new door in my mind, and suddenly the world became a much bigger place; a lot scarier, but much more interesting." _Of course it took be half a bottle of scotch to get to that point, but she doesn't need to know that._

"So you're not wigged or anything?"

"Wigged?"

"You know, weirded out."

"Well, yes I'm a little wigged, but that won't stop me from trying to help you. Now, let's look at some of your pictures from art therapy. Tell me about this one of the tree."

"It's a little pine tree that's growing on the edge of a stream." 

"Ok, now tell me about what you were thinking when you drew it."

"I was thinking about a place in Colorado we went to when I was little." 

"When you say we, who all was there?"

"My family: Mom, Dad, and Buffy."

"So what happened on this trip that made it so memorable?"

"Nothing much. It was just nice. We were all together, and Mom and Dad weren't fighting. Buffy even helped me to catch fireflies, and we put them in a bottle. I can remember watching them from my sleeping bag." 

"It sounds like a nice memory." I pause and wait to see if she will add anything. When she doesn't; I ask another question. "Dawn, would you say this picture is happy or sad?"

"It's kind of sad, don't you think? The colors are all blues and purples. It looks lonely."

"Lonely?"

"Yeah. Look at it; surrounded by all the other trees, but its not a part of them. It's off on its own by the stream."

"I can tell you put a lot of detail into the stream, much more detail than you put into the tree. Why?"

"Water's neat. It's so hard to draw, all flowy and everything. I just wanted to follow it. You know, experiment. See where it was going."

"So, you were experimenting with your technique for drawing water?"

Uh huh. She nods.

"That doesn't tell me why one is more detailed then the other."

"I don't like trees; I'm not fond of still-lives. I like water; it moves and goes places."

_Damn, the sarcasm in that statement is palatable, as only a teenager can make it._

"Dawn, what if I was to tell you that trees are often seen as symbols for our bodies and our family systems. Look at the way you drew the little tree. It's off on its own. It's being over shadowed by the older, bigger trees.  If I were to look at this symbolically, I would wonder if that's what you felt your place was in your family." 

"Wait don't answer yet. Look at the water. Water is often a symbol for emotions. In your picture the water is moving, carrying your emotions away. Where are they going, Dawn? Now look at the picture again, and tell me how it relates to you." 

Case Notes:

            Pt participated in a 45 minute individual session. Improvement was noted in Pt's affect. The Person, House, and Tree interpretive drawing evaluation given by the art therapist discussed with client. Pt's expresses concerns regarding social isolation, and expressed fears that her emotions were getting out of control. The drawing of a person (seen with her back toward the viewer) indicates a possibility of poor self awareness, and decreased self esteem. Homework- Pt is to identify at least 3 things that she can do to decrease her perceived isolation. Continue inpatient art and group therapy. AM blood draw/ck medication levels. Dr. T. Lawrence, MD

~Dawn~

Day 2

The water has separated from the tempera paint they are using, making it lumpy. I stir it with a vengeance, smashing the lumps against the side of the styrofoam cup. The activity of the day was to paint something that makes you happy. What a pile of crap! I am grateful that tomorrow is my last day. I'll be glad to get out of here, and away from all the togetherness. I want to sleep in my own bed and …

My thought trails off as Mrs. Corbin heads toward my table. Her curly blue hair bobs up and down as she waddles forward. I'm surprised to see her up and around. I would have thought electric shock treatment would have been quite painful. 

"You doing okay today, Mrs. Corbin?" I ask in concern as the woman shakily lowers herself into the chair across from me.

"Oh, right as rain, dear. Thank you for asking." She takes a cup of paint and begins to stir it.

With the limited palette they have provided it's hard to think of something to paint. Maybe I should go with something abstract, but what would make me happy right now is a big plate of chocolate chip cookies.  Nice hot cookies, ones where the chocolate oozes out as you pull it apart. Ones like mom use to make. I'm not sure what Buffy and I do wrong, but they never taste as good as hers did, even though we use her recipe. Tara use to tease that it was the love she put into them that makes the difference.  

"Oh dear, now look what I've done."

I glance up. The old woman's grip was too tight and she's punctured the foam cup with her thumb.  Taking the cup from her trembling fingers, I offer her a paper towel. "Why don't you take my paint, Mrs. Corbin; I don't know what I want to paint yet anyway."

As I pour the yellow paint into a new cup I get an idea. A dollop of red, a small dab of black, stir, and I get a passable brown. Not bad. I'll add some white to make the tan for the outside of the cookies. I begin to paint a low pyramid of ovals lying on a blue plate. I'll add the chips after this dries.

I look at my tablemate to see how she is doing, and find her staring at me. "Are you sure you're okay, Mrs. Corbin? Do you need me to get you anything? I imagine your still feeling pretty rough from the electric shock treatment."

"Oh no, dear, I'm fine. Really! Electric shock doesn't hurt at all. I just sleep right through it."

Taking that as a dismissal I go back to my work and begin to rough in a background of kitchen cabinets. My forehead begins to itch, the way it does when someone is staring at me. I look up and I meet her eyes. This is getting creepy. She takes my eye contact as permission to continue our previous conversation.

"Do you know, I actually like the shocks, they let me see everything so clearly. I get scared when I can't see things clearly. Everything gets all misty at times, and I'm afraid something is going to get me." She shivers theatrically. 

She's probably just lonely and wants to talk. If I keep my eyes down, maybe she'll leave me alone.  I diligently begin to work on the angles of the cabinets so that the perspective focuses the viewer's attention on the plate of cookies. 

"Hope I didn't scare you yesterday, with all my crying and carrying on. I'd just never seen anything quite like you, my dear. But now I can tell you're a nice girl. You're such a bright shiny green. You glow with it, just like your paintings."

Ok, that stopped me. I mean, I've come to kinda expect crazies to tell me I glow, but this is the first time anyone has ever mentioned my paintings.

"Mrs. Corbin, I'm not using any green paint."

"Oh, I'm sure its not paint, dear. Paint doesn't hang in the air like that. It's such a pretty shade of green, and your cookies look very good, too". She gestured to the picture on the table. "I wish I could have a cookie, this hospital food is just terrible." 

I narrow my eyes trying to see what she is seeing. Reaching out a finger tip I touch the wet paint. What the…! My finger sinks through the paper down below the level of the table top. I try to pull it back but I can't. A swirling funnel of color opens beneath my hand sucking me in. It's like falling into an impressionistic landscape. Splashes and dots of color seem to form images that break apart the moment I recognize them. Then, disoriented and dizzy, I am unceremoniously dumped on to the kitchen floor.  Before me on the counter lies the plate of cookies that I have just drawn. Giving a strangled cry, I reach for one in disbelief. Its warm, hot, and golden brown; just like I imagined. 

"Dawn, is that you?" Buffy's voice floats down from upstairs. 

I jump in alarm, and find myself back in the hospital's art therapy room.

"Oh, you got a cookie. I wish you would have brought me one."

I stare at the cookie in awe. What have I just done?

~Buffy~

 "Sunnydale Memorial Hospital- Psych Ward- Pat speaking."

"Hi. This is Buffy Summers. I'd like to speak to my sister, Dawn Summers, please."

"I'm sorry she's in with her doctor right now. I'll transfer you to her room's voice mail and you can leave a message."

Buffy hung up in confusion. She could have sworn she had heard Dawn. Shrugging, she grabbed a cookie from the plate before heading out the door to work.

~Spike~

I scribble a note to Buffy telling her I've gone to the hospital. Dawn's voice sounded urgent. I head up the steps to the attic to get the supplies she asked for. No one's been up here since the night I took her to the hospital. I make a mental note to remind Buffy to clean up the glass and the blood. I'd do it myself, but creatures of darkness don't do house work. Well, not when they can convince others to do it for them anyway. 

I carefully take the painting down from the easel. Why she wanted a wet painting I don't know. Do you realize how hard this thing is going to be to transport without smearing it? Oils take forever to dry, why couldn't she paint in acrylics.

I'm kind of leery about taking it to the hospital. It will probably give the good doctor heart failure. Dawn did a first-class job of capturing the essence of the hunt; all darkness and terror.  Sometimes I miss it; hunting my prey through the London streets, and then bringing it home to share with Dru. Yep, Big Bad in all his glory. 

I grab the tackle box from the shelf and throw some tubes of oil paint in it. Then taking a hand full of brushes and the painting; I head down the stairs to the car.

~Dawn~

I'm so excited I feel like I've had a triple espresso. I caught Dr. Lawrence just as she was leaving for the evening, and convinced her to come back with me.  If this works I want someone who can be objective, and if it doesn't I want her there so that she can give me medication; 'cause I've obviously lost it.

"I don't know if this will work." I lead them through the darkened art therapy room. The single spot light highlights the white rectangle on the easel.  Flipping back the loose sheet that Spike covered it with for transport; I am struck by how powerful it is. I think it's one of my best works.

Dr. Lawrence draws back from it, and looks rapidly between Spike and my painting.

"Yeah, it's me. What of it?" Spike gave the doctor a disgruntled look.

"Nothing, she's changed the hair, but I can tell that it's you."

"I used to wear it longer back then." 

 Trembling in anticipation I raise my hand and press the palm against the wet paint of the painting. The minute my skin makes contact with the canvas I can sense the change. It is much faster this time. I wonder if the quality of the painting has anything to do with it. A whirlpool begins to open up under my hand sucking me in. I can feel my self falling through the slashes of black and burnt umber that had made up the background. Hands grab at me, trying to pull me back. But I won't go! I push forward pulling them along behind me.

I fall with a smack, taking the impact on my hands and knees.  My injured wrist buckled, and like an unstable tripod I collapse on to my elbow.  _Damn it, damn it, damn it! My wrist burns as if I've shoved it in a fryer of hot grease. I'm pretty sure I've torn my stitches out, but in the dim light it is hard to check. Pushing myself up, my right hand slides across the cobbles comes to rest in something sticky._

 _Eew!I pull my hand away and wipe it on my jeans. _God, I hope that isn't what I think it is_. _The stench is horrendous. I'd never thought about how the scenes in my paintings might smell._ The putrid reek of open sewer and rotting food makes me want to barf.  Underlying all the other smells is something familiar, and it scares me worse than the rustlings I hear among the garbage. The metallic odor could mean only one thing- blood, and I don't think it's mine._

 It's so dark in the alley that all I can see are vague geometric outlines. Lumps and cylinders line an even darker wall like a modern impressionistic canvas. Everything has been reduced to a monochromatic palette of gray and black. My eyes gradually adjust to the gloom, and I raise my head to look around. _Oh god! What I had taken for a bag of trash was actually the woman from my portrait. Dead now, her eyes stare into mine from where she lays only a few feet away. I feel a scream building in my throat, as I scramble backwards away from her. _

"And what have we here?"

 The voice comes from above and behind me making me jump in alarm. I find myself gazing into the eyes of two familiar strangers. It's Spike, but it's not my Spike. He's all dressed in brown, a color he never wears. And Dru, I haven't seen Dru since Angelus kidnapped me when I was eleven. She hasn't changed, only her hair is different. Beribboned, curled, and elegant she is still ten times more terrifying than the familiar stranger who bares his fangs as he pulls me from the ground. Time feels disjointed. My vision seems to switch between the sepia version of reality locked in an old time photograph, and the Kodak colored life or unlife that stands before me. The scream that was building has become lodged in my throat and I can't even breathe. My sight goes from color, to gray-brown, to black. Forcing the scream past the constricted muscles of my throat I gasp for air, and wait for the shock to carry me back to the present, but nothing happens.

"Poor angel, it's fallen from the heavens. But where are its wings? Time runs too fast, and the sun's rising." 

He gives Drusilla a fond smile. "Right, luv, I can't say I've seen too many angels, but it did fall from the sky. I say we take this little puzzle back with us, and if it's not useful we can have it for tea."

Spike's fingers dig into my arm, and he starts to pull me down the alley.  Our heads turn in unison as a loud thud sounds behind us, and the bodies of two people sprawl in a tangled heap on the cobbled street.  

"God damn it, Dawn. I'm going to rip you freakin' head off. What the hell did you do?"

"Spike", I yell and two sets of eyes turn toward me the first in bafflement, and the second in horror. A hurricane of emotions seems to pour across Spike's features. Anger and anxiety give way to steely calm, as he takes in the tableau before him. Dr. Lawrence seems unhurt, but stunned. Her eyes fix on the blood soaked bandage adorning my wrist and she starts toward me, but stops as Spike motions for her to stay behind him. _I'm so stupid, why didn't I think before I got us all into this! _

~Spike~

Don't let anyone ever tell you that time travel is not a shock to the ol' noggin; I don't care how many times they've watched Star Trek. How in hell did we end up here? It can't be anyplace else but London; no other place in the world could smell so much like coal dust and cabbage. I stare at my younger self with stunned dismay. Why didn't anybody ever tell me that that hairstyle made me look like a bleedin' fag? My mind's skipping tracks like a portable CD player on a bumpy road, and I can't seem to stay focused.  Looking around, I catch sight of Drusilla. Oh god, Drusilla. My Dru all corseted up, and that little trickle of blood at the corner of her lips, what a goddess she is...was?  I scrutinize the area carefully for clues to what year this is. I need to remember rapidly; if Angelus and Darla are around this could turn ugly fast.

 Dawn whimpers and I turn my attention back to her. Time to get moving; the quicker I get Dawn back the quicker she can get us home. _And__ when I get her home I'm going to beat the living daylights out of her for getting us into this mess in the first place. I hear the Doc scrambling up behind me. She's keeping quiet and letting me handle this. Got a good head on her shoulders, that one.  I swagger forward, bluffing for all its worth._

"Well, if it isn't William the bloody, and the lovely Drusilla. Looks like you've done me a favor; catching my stray and all." I try to project the weight of time into that phrase. It's a well known fact that a vampire's power gets stronger as they age; I'm a master now- not a minion, and I don't have to take anything off a pup that's probably not even fifty years old even if it does happen to be myself.  I keep my eyes on their faces trying to judge their reaction. I'm not sure he's recognized me, but Dru has. The gobsmacked look on her face is priceless. Her head's bobbing back and forth like a ping pong ball between us. It's harder to read myself, the git's face looks like its been frozen in plaster. It makes me wonder why I don't win more often at poker.

"Do I know you, mate?"

Drusilla steps between us, and heads toward me with her arms outstretched. "My poor Spike, what have they done to you, my love?" 

"I'm right here Dru, they haven't done anything to me."

 My younger self moves in front of Dru, and pushes her toward the end of the alley. I make a lunge for Dawn, and we end up in a tug-o-war with Dawn screaming like a banshee cause the fool's pulling on her injured arm. Doc tries to lend a hand and grabs Dawny around the waist. Then Dru tries to take a bite out of Doc's shoulder. I can't tell if she's hurt or not, but she lets go and the three of us stagger into one of the barrels that line the alley tipping it over. Old, rancid grease pours across out our feet, and things go a bit wonky at that point. 

 I watch in amazement as Doc and Drusilla go at it. Dru must just have gotten a mouthful of shoulder pad, 'cause Doc doesn't act like she's hurt, and damn if she doesn't know some sort of martial arts.  Dawn slips, dragging me down with her, and I lose my hold. The three of us grapple around in the grease for a few moments, but he gets his footing back first and flings Dawn into Dru's arms. Dru wraps her hand around Dawn's hair, bending her head down, and baring her throat. Dawn struggles, but I flash her a look and she holds still. Holding still is the best thing to do around Dru, struggling just gets her all excited.

I grab my other self, and just as I'm about ready to break his freakin' neck, Doc tackles me yelling, "Don't kill him, you'll mess up the time line, and we'll never get back." The two of us slid into the remaining barrels bringing them down on top of us in an avalanche of garbage and sour wine.

By the time, we get our limbs sorted out, and our feet back under us, they're gone without a trace as to which way they went. _God damn it all to hell, could things get any worse?_  As I lean over the broken barrels and offer Doc my arm, I hear the sound of a cock heralding the coming sun. __

~Dawn~

            I struggle to find my footing as Dru drags me up the pitch-black stairs of an abandoned building.  Forcing my weight backwards, I try to break the iron grasp that binds me to my assailant, but the wooden handrail was brittle and pulls away from the wall. I try to hold on to a piece of it to use it for a stake, but it is so worm eaten that it crumbles beneath my fingers.

_Uh-oh_, _She's__ irritated with me now. __Shit!  She pulls me up the last few steps by shear force. Spike doesn't use his strength around me too much, and I've forgotten just how incredibly strong vampires are. She throws me through landing doorway, and I land awkwardly unable to tuck and role as I've been taught.  I make a mad scramble for the door.  She grabs me by hair my and hauls me back; hissing at me like a cat._

"Naughty angel, she doesn't want to play, and we were going to have a tea party."  

Dru starts swaying back and forth. Her eyes burrow through my skull. I know she's trying to hypnotize me, and I try to fight it, but I can feel myself zoning out. She takes me by the hand, forcing me down into a tub of water clothes and all. 

"Nasty, dirty, smelly; we must get our little angel clean."

            She pushes my head, under the water, and holds me there until I'm about ready to black out. I come up gasping, the cold water's broken her spell, and I start to fight. She pushes me under again as if I was nothing more then a pile of dirty clothes. My mouth opens in a silent scream as I thrash about under the water, but just as I am about to lose consciousness another set of hands hauls me up roughly by my hair.

"Dru, how many times have I told you that you don't have to wash your food before you eat it? You're not some bloody raccoon."

            "Its smell clogged up my nose."

Spike hauls me over the side of the iron tub, and I collapse into a drippy wet puddle on the oriental carpet. "She tried to drown me", I complain. 

"Well, yeah." He gives me this blank look, like what did I expect, and tosses me the sheet off the bed.

"What are you?" He pulls the backpack off my shoulders, and attempts to open it, but seems baffled by the zipper. I look at the bag and am surprised it stayed with me as long as it did with all the knocks I've taken in the last hour.

            "I'm an artist, a painter." I reach out and give the zipper a tug. Water and tubes of paint sluice across the cherry wood table. It's amazing how the mind seeks out trivia when it can't deal with the repercussions of reality, but the artist in me is horrified, the finish on the antique gate legged table is probably ruined. Wait, in this time period it's probably not an antique at all, but new or old, it's still a nice piece, and it's a shame to dump all that water on it. I stand there and dab at it ineffectively with the edge of my sheet while Spike plays with the backpack's zipper like a little kid with a new toy, running it up and down over and over again.

Keeping an eye on the unpredictable Drusilla, I examine the room in greater detail, but like most lairs favored by vampires it has limited escape options. The large rectangular room appears to be an interior one without windows and with only one visible exit. The ornate furniture that inhabits the space doesn't match the dilapidated surroundings and it strikes a jarring note, like using pot metal to mount a ten-carat diamond.  The couches are covered in red brocade silk, the shabby cracking walls are adorned with tapestries that would be more at home in some Bavarian castle, and the bed with its heavy curtains looks like something from an Edmund Dulac illustration of Sleeping Beauty.

"Neat trick that." Giving it one last zip, he tossed the backpack from him. "But nothing in here tells me who you and your friends are, and where you come from".

 Reaching up from the chair, he grabs me by the hair, and pulls me down until I'm kneeling between his legs. "Pony up girlie, and make it a good story, or I'll let Drusilla over there finish her meal preparation."

"Oow, oow, ouch!" I try to tug my hair from his grasp. _The way everybody's been pulling on it I'm surprised I have any left._ "I painted a picture of the alley that you found me in, and then when I touched it I fell through." _There I didn't say anything untruthful, but it didn't really explain my role. I don't think I want them to know that I can open portals through time._

"Who was that woman who was with my Spike?" 

"I'm your Spike, and I'm right here. The other is an impostor, or something."

"You don't have to worry about Dr. Lawrence. She wasn't really with him, they were just chasing me; I was escaping from an insane asylum.  _Maybe I can establish a little bonding, among us fellow loonies._

"Insane?" She gets a speculative look on her face. "Do you see things? Do 'orrible nasties paw through your skull, and lick its jelly from their claws?"

"Umm, no. I'm not real you see, and I don't belong here. I tried to escape by killing myself." _Oops, probably shouldn't have brought up the k word_. 

She looked me in the eyes, and for the first time she actually seems to see me. "Not real. Nothing… neither here nor there. Locks and keys, locks and keys." She drags her nails lightly down the side of my face sending shivers down my spine. "Reality is not what you desire, little angel.  Real?  Reality chews you up. It has nasty teeth and claws. Reality kills your family, and everyone you love." 

"Angelus killed your family."

"You know Angelus?" Spike breaks between our little dance and turns me to face him. 

_What do I tell them? That he use to date my sister- The Slayer._ I settle for a neutral, "yes". 

"And you survived?" He looks impressed.

"Yeah, with some help." _I wonder if I should tell him that he's the one that rescued me? _Maybe not, he'd hardly___ see it as a compliment at this point._

  "Umm, speaking of which, where are he and Darla right now?" _Running into them would be the last thing I needed. Spike could be reasoned with, but Angelus was just pure evil._

"They're somewhere in Italy right now. Too bad, I'm sure he'll be disappointed not to see you again. Maybe I'll keep your body around after I've finished with you so he can say hello, so to speak." Bringing his face only inches from my own and he shouts in rage, "Now just where did you come from, and why did the bloke in the alley have my face?" His hand slams into the wall beside my head with a sharp crack, and I cringe.

~Dr. Lawrence~

"Do you know where they took her?" I can tell that my voice is shaky, and I feel close to tears.

"Haven't a clue. I'm not sure what year this is, and as you can imagine we moved around quite a bit to keep the hunters off our tail." He offers me a hand over a wooden fence and we continue to walk. The warehouses and shops have given way to a more residential area. Clotheslines full of cloth diapers and white underclothes flutter like ghosts in the dim light as we scurry down the dark alleyways. The birds are waking up, and their territorial chatter heralds the coming light. He seems to realize it at the same time; and grabs my wrist, hurrying me along. 

As he pulls me further and further from where we first landed, my inner child starts to panic, and I wail, "How will we get home?"

"I don't know, but don't you worry, I've been through worse." 

_Some comfort that is!  Maybe he has been through worse, but I haven't and_ _six years of college and another four in medical school have definitely not prepared me for dealing with this_. _Ok,_ _now I'm angry.  In a strange way it makes me feel better. Being angry and afraid is much better then being just plain afraid._

"The first thing we need to do is find some shelter. Daylight's coming, and they'll be heading a ground, too. We'll have to find them when the sun goes down."

"You came to the hospital in daylight", I phrase it as both an observation and a question.

"Limited sewers in this time period; good underground plumbing makes it much easier to get around without going poof."

"So it's true then, the part about sunlight killing you."

"Yeah, sunlight, garlic, stakes, crosses, and all that rot, completely true."

 I pondered the implications of that as we jog down a twisting maze of alleyways. He appears to know where he's headed. I can't get over the feeling that he's enjoying this. _Vampires, time travel, what's next, space aliens? _

We pause in the backyard of what appears to be a large town home and begin weaving our way between the kitchen garden with it rows of lettuce and tomato plants and a small chicken yard. The rear windows of the brownish brick house are shaded by two large elm trees. The vampire comes to a halt beneath the shadow of the second tree, and signals for me to wait.

 "If worse comes to worse. I'll break the lock on the laundry, but I really don't want to hide in there. Too many be people coming and going", he whispers and points to a small brick building about thirty yards away from the rear entrance of the house.

 "You wait here; I'm going to see about getting us into this house." He starts to shimmy up the tree to one of the second story windows. I can't help but wonder who he thinks will be crazy enough to let us in, we smell like the end of the pier at low tide and look like we've taken up dumpster diving as a professional sport.

~Buffy~

"What do you mean my sister is missing; she's in a locked psychiatric ward.  How could you have misplaced her?"

Buffy listened to the administrator as the man tried to be both reassuring and noncommittal at the same time. Digging between the lines, she was able to figure out that the last person to see Dawn had been the security guard who had unlocked the art therapy room at the request of Dr. Lawrence. Buffy wondered where Spike fit into all of this. Apparently, the hospital didn't realize there might be three missing people instead of two. Well, until she saw the situation for herself she wasn't going to enlighten them.

  "No, I'll be right there." Buffy mentally ticked off a list of her current enemies, and tried to figure out what was going on.

 She hit the autodial button for Will. "Will are you free? Something has happened over at the hospital.  Dawn, and her psychiatrist have gone missing, and maybe Spike, too. I'm not sure where he is, but he left a message that he was going over there."

 "No, they didn't give me any details. Can you meet me at the hospital so we can get a first hand look at the situation? No, I'll call Xander myself.  We may need him to run interference with the hospital personnel and the police."

"Ok, I'll see you there in thirty minutes."

~Dawn~

I start to cry as a delaying tactic, but now I can't seem to stop. The tears come hard and fast. If only I can think of a believable story, maybe he'll help me find _my Spike, and we can all go home._

"Here." Spike tosses me a linen hanky. "Stop your blubbering, and let me see if I got this straight. You're from the future, and that twit that I saw you with was really my future self. 

 "It's true, I swear." My crying jag has trickled off to a few hiccups. "Angel, Drusilla and you all live in California." 

 "How did you end up here?"

"It was a spell.  I think I can reverse it, but to get back to the future we all need to be together."

"She hides the truth. Her heart whispers to me, pss, pss, pss." Drusilla stretched out her hand and laid it flat against my chest.  _I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack right then and there. _

"What does it say, my darling?" He leans close to her twinning a tendril of raven dark hair between his fingers.__

"It speaks of her love for you."  
            "She loves me?"  
            Thank god! I was afraid that Dru was picking up on all the stuff I was leaving out. This I could handle. "I do love you; in the future I serve you. I am in your thrall."

"Thralls? Blimey, I must be as powerful as Dracula."

"Oh, you're way cooler than him."

Spike is looking insufferably puffed up about being compared to Drac. He leans back in his chair and starts staring at the ceiling_, probably visualizing the string of thralls he has under his command. I can tell Dru is getting bored; she's wandering around the room shredding the handkerchief that I dropped into tiny pieces. _God, she's strong, that's linen not just a paper kleenex_. She stops next to me and picks up a tube of paint from the table. Unscrewing the lid, she squeezes a dab of bright red between her fingers. Giggling, she rubs her hands together smearing the paint until it looks like she's wearing red opera gloves. The twisting and wringing of her hands reminds me of the play we did in high school.  Dru would be perfect in the part of Lady Macbeth, __much better then that wimpy Karla Kindal who got the role; she already has the madness thing down pat. _Out damn spot! _I move over to the couch, as close to the door as I can get without tipping them off._

Dru looks at me slyly, cocking her head and running the tip of her tongue over her lips. "My momma always said beauty is as beauty does. Do you think I'm beautiful, little angel?"

 "No, I don't." _I'm not sure where I came up with the courage to give that answer; maybe I am as suicidal as Dr. Lawrence thinks. "I think you are captivating, and alluring …..and dangerous", I add as an afterthought. I have to keep reminding myself that this woman kills for pleasure, and I don't want to end up like poor Kendra with my throat slashed.  _

Spike smiled at Dru with affection. Leaning over, she stroked a red finger tip across his cheek, and down the side of his neck. I tell you the look he gave her was down right disturbing; I'm use to him looking at Buffy like he wants to eat her up, I mean it's cute when he goes all misty and adoring, but it was just wrong seeing him looking at Dru with the exact same expression.

"My evil empress, you'd like to be able to admire your lovely face again, wouldn't you?" He picked up one of the paint brushes and twirled it between his fingers like a baton. "Done up right a painting would be almost as good as a mirror, now wouldn't it." 

~Spike~

            "Paige! Paige, wake up, it's me William."  I rapped on the window with my knuckles. I could hear a heart beat so I knew someone was in there. "Paige, be a good little sister, and open the window for your brother."

            Pale, delicate hands pushed the curtain aside, and opened the window part way. "Willy, you're not supposed to be here, you're dead. You're supposed to be in heaven, God will be angry at you for leaving."  

What the…. She was making about as much sense as Dru did. I didn't have time to worry about it now, the sun was crowning the top of the tree, and here I was sitting in it like the proverbial duck. "Paige, could I come in please?"

"Don't be a silly Willy", she giggled, "it's your house, too!"

"Paige, repeat after me. Come in William."

"Come in… Willy."

Good enough. I dive through the window, knocking Paige over in my haste to get inside.  Turning my back on her for a moment I help Doc maneuver from the tree to the window ledge. 

"Paige, this is Doc. Doc this Paige, my sister."

Paige murmured, "Willy", and collapsed in a dead faint.

Doc caught her before she hit the ground, and put a hand on her forehead, "Good grief, she's burning up! Here, help me get her to the bed."

I scoop her up in my arms, and start to carry her toward the bed, her sweet warm weight dredging up so many past memories. With a nine year difference in our ages, it seemed like I was forever hauling her up the stairs when she'd fallen asleep down in the parlor.  I gave her an extra squeeze and lay her gently on the covers.

Doc elbows me out of the way to examine Paige, and hisses at me to get her some light. I turn and start toward the doorway, and then felt like a fool; my mind expected to find a light switch. Turning back to the table I fumble my way through lighting an oil lamp. Pumping up the base to bring the oil to the surface, I light the wick with one of the red tipped matches lying nearby for that purpose.  

Shielding the light from the doorway with my body, I moved back over to the bed and looked down at my sister's face. When had she grown so beautiful? All I remember were brown braids, freckles, and her ability to annoy me. _Well, at least one thing hadn't changed. Bloody hell, she'd called me Willy, no one has dared to call me that in years, and even when I was alive only my grandmother got away with it. "How old do you think she is?"_

"Hmm, hard to tell, late teens or early twenties I'd guess."

"I died when she was twelve."

So that means only about seven or eight years has passed. Does that help you figure out where they may have taken Dawn? Bring the light closer I need to look at her throat."

Even from where I stand hovering over the doctor's head, I can see it is swollen and red.  She begins to bunch up Paige's nightgown. "Hey, wait a minute", I complain. 

"Look, I need to check to see if she's got a rash, if you're embarrassed turn around. Oh, wait, I need the light."

I hold the lamp behind my back until she says I can turn around. Hell, it's bad enough when Dawn's prancing around in that bikini of hers, I don't even want to chance thinking about Paige that way. I can control my actions, but demonic thoughts are another matter. I'm struck by how much Dawn and Paige look alike, sometimes the gods have a weird sense of humor. 

"Ok, remember, I haven't practiced physical medicine since I was an intern almost ten years ago, but I think she's got scarlet fever."

"That's good isn't it? I mean it's curable and all, right?" I am surprised how much it suddenly matters to me that she be ok. I haven't thought about her in years, I'd never checked on any of my family after I changed; not like that bastard Angelus who murdered his entire bloodline down to the last infant.  

"It would be easy enough to cure if we were back in our time. I'd just give her a shot of antibiotics and she'd be well in about three days. In this time period however, it's a serious disease."

"How serious?" I'm not sure I really want to know.

"She could die." 

The sound of a door being closed somewhere below us, interrupts the conversation. "We need to get out of here, before the maid comes in to stoke up the fire", I whisper. Holding a finger to my lips I approach the doorway and listen carefully. There's no one in the hall. Opening the door, I gesture for Doc to follow me, and we head up the back staircase to the attic.


	3. past

Real

~Buffy~

"Ok, I need to pound something. Let's get away from the cops before I punch one of them in the nose." Buffy marched up to Willow where she was sitting in the hospital waiting room. She was almost trembling with rage. "They're trying to blame it all on Dawn. They think she's kidnapped her doctor, and they've issued an APB for her arrest."

            Willow put her arm around her friend and led her over to the lounge chairs by the window. "Xander went to scout for a place to do a locator spell, but I've got a feeling they aren't here. Something is out of balance, I'm not sure what, but it's coming from the psychward."

            "Will, you didn't do a spell or anything did you?" Buffy's voice was full of worry over her friend's fragile magical balance.

            "No.  I just sense it, that's all. See if you can get us back there so we can take a look."

            When Buffy returned to Willow a few minutes later, she was wearing a visitor's badge and held another one in her hand. "They were only going to let me go, but I complained about needing emotional support", she said as she offered the second one to her friend.

"Hello, I'm Mrs. Linstrom, the head nurse on this ward. If you'll follow me I'll show you where the security guard saw them last, but I need to tell you that when the police released the room we went ahead and let our art therapist start her group. The patients get anxious when their routines are disturbed."

            The woman quickly led them to a brightly lit room filled with about fifteen patients engaged in a variety of arts and crafts. The cheerful chatter that had been going on in the room ground to a halt as Buffy's group entered, but the nurse called out a few greetings and gradually the men and women returned to their previous activities.

 Buffy stood in the doorway, examining the room for any clues to Dawn and Spike's whereabouts. The walls were lined with shelves holding craft supplies and pieces of art work in various stages of completion. Nothing looked too out of place or broken, so there probably hadn't been a fight. She turned toward Willow to see if she had spotted whatever had been sending out the feeling of wrongness.  Willow just shrugged, and slowly began to wander about the room, stopping every few feet to examine something only she could see.

 Wills had the right idea, she thought, moving around beat standing there with the nurse. The woman was starting to give them 'the look'; the one that said hurry up, you're wasting my valuable time. Buffy gave the woman one of her patented dumb blonde smiles in return, and began to move toward the back of the room.

 Buffy made eye contact with one of patients as she walked between the tables. The old woman's bird bright eyes examined her curiously, and Buffy stared back until the sight on one of Dawn's painting distracted her. The painting sat on an easel in the center of the far wall. Buffy wasn't even aware that she had moved until she found herself reaching toward the canvas with a fingertip. The painting was unlike anything Dawn had done before. It was a swirling mass of blurry handprints that spiraled into a vortex of dark paint. The handprints distorted what might have been two human forms, but the original composition of the work was unclear. 

 "You're her sister aren't you, the one who made the cookies?" The old woman's sudden appearance at her elbow startled her and she withdrew her hand.

"The one Dawn brought me was so delicious. You wouldn't happen to have anymore would you?"

"Mrs. Corbin, you need to return to your seat, and get back to your own work, ok?" said the head nurse as she tried to intervene. 

"Wait, how did you know I baked cookies yesterday?" Buffy examined the blue haired woman with increasing suspicion. 

"She brought me one, don'tcha  know? Such a sweet little thing, she popped right into her painting a brought it back, and it was still warm too."

"What do you mean? She went into her painting how?"

"Mrs. Corbin, Sandy's about ready to begin her lesson, you need to go sit down." Buffy ground her teeth in frustration as the nurse physically took the woman by her arm and guided her back to her table. 

"Willow", Buffy said under her breath, "could you make anything out of that?"

"Kinda sorta", Willow whispered, "and there is definitely something wrong with this painting. We need to get it back to your house, ASAP"

~Dawn~

I can't believe he left me alone with this crazy woman. First Drusilla tries to drown me, and now she's braiding my hair into pigtails- with bows! I feel like I've fallen head first down the rabbit hole. I can only hope some cat with a big grin doesn't appear and stick a sign on me that says 'drink me'. 

My momentary bravado wears off and I feel like crying. I wish Spike hadn't left; I'd feel much safer if he was around.  I know in my mind that he's the 'Big Bad', and that he can kill me anytime he wants to, but it still feels like there is a connection.  I look into his eyes, and it's as if he sees me. Dru sees me too, but that's not the least bit comforting. She's seeing too much. I wish I could turn my brain off; she's rummaging through it the way Anya picks over the bargain bin at Saks, and the harder I try not to think of something the more she picks up.

"Leather, bows, and lace for good measure, then we will give the queen her tea. Miss Muffet has the key, and you shall have blood and honey." She gives the braid a little crack like a whip as she ties off the end.

_Oh, gods! Now she knows Faith's old nickname for me, and has caught something about the key. Please, please, keep her from finding out about Buffy.  _Drusilla runs the side of her hand down my face, scratching me with her nails. I rear back in shock, covering my cheek with my hands. She pulls my hands away and licks the welt with her pointy cat's tongue.

            "Aren't you real, precious? All ashes and energy, you are. The queen of cups is served by the page, but I don't think she'll save you.

_No, no, no! Stop thinking! Recite poetry, count backwards by threes, something, anything, just stop thinking, I order myself. Latching on to the first poem I can think of, I begin to recite, Momma said I'd loose my head if it wasn't fastened on… Ok, ok, not a good choice… 100, 97, 94, 91, 88... _Drusilla thrusts a white linen gown in my hands, making me loose count. __

"New clothes for old, precious, and then we'll anoint you."__

 Dru's own brand of craziness merges with memory, and the fear carries me back to Glory and her demands that I change for her ceremony. Terror has become a whirlpool of darkness, sucking me down into my own personal hell. I find myself I huddled in a tight ball at the end of the bed as the panic comes in waves, threatening to drown me. Time has no meaning to me; I can attend to nothing but the flood of pain and anguish that drags me under. I shiver and sob, grinding my nails into the palms of my hands.  _I'm helpless... made to be used…I'm not real, not real, not real…I have nothing…am nothing…not real, not real…_

Slowly my awareness of my surroundings returns. How many hours have I lost?  The panic eases its clutch on my throat and I can breathe again. I'm all sweaty and nauseous, and my throat is raw with pain. My screaming must not have bothered Drusilla, because I find that am wearing the damn Victorian nightgown that precipitated the flashback. I start shiver and cry again as another wave of terror washes over me, and all the while my brain continues its endless litany of _not real, not real, not real…. _

The panic fades again, leaving me limp and trembling. This time it was less powerful, and even with my distorted sense of time I could tell it was shorter. When Dr. Lawrence mentioned desensitization therapy, I don't think this was what she had in mind, but for the first time I believe I can beat this. I imagine myself standing on rock; there is no sand to wash away from under me now. The black wave pours over me drenching me in fear and sweat. I moan, but when I refuse to give in the terror sluices around and past me. I've made it! Exhausted and emotionally battered, I collapse onto the bed unable to even open my eyes. _Dru__ can kill me now if she wants to, I'm too tired to fight._

~Dr. Lawrence~

The sunlight filters in through the window slats bathing the attic in a dusty twilight. I wonder what the vampire is thinking as he sits motionless on a horse hair sofa that has clearly seen better days. It's odd to see something sit that still and know it could still move. If I close my eyes he completely disappears off my internal radar, there is no breath, no swallows or sighs, no little rustles of fabric; nothing that would typically alert others to our presence.  Just as I've begun to think that he's turned to stone, he breaks the stillness with the force of a hurricane.  The power of his lunge catches me off guard, and I almost topple off the old trunk I'd chosen for my perch. My eyes follow him warily as he grabs up a loose piece of wood, and twists it and twists it until it's reduced to splintery rubble. 

"What are you staring at?" His voice is angry and belligerent.

"I was just wondering if you were planning to start a fire, or if that was your way of displacing some anxiety? I'm betting on the anxiety." _There is no way I'm going to tell him how much that little show of strength just terrified me. It's time to shift into clinician mode. Lock those emotions down! Strive for nonjudgmental support; I don't want him turning that anger on me. _

"Yeah, well, I got a lot on my mind." 

"Want to talk? Sometimes it helps make things clearer."

"Talk about what? That Dawn's out there somewhere with me and Dru, that Paige is sick, that I'm trapped in this house until the sun goes down, trapped in the past with no sure way home. Fat lot of good talking does."

"Made you feel better just then, didn't it?"

"Yes. No! I just don't like sitting here."

"Let's keep talking; it makes me feel less panicky, and maybe we can come up with a plan." _Good, he's just given me a sympathetic look; that means I've established the start of an empathic bond with him.  And let's not mention that what I said was true. If I don't keep talking, I'm liable to start shaking like a potluck jello mold. Jesus, I wish I had my bag here, I could sure use some of those lovely little pills the pharmacy reps keep pushing on me. "Where do you think they took her?" _

"Don't know. I got about three places that I'll check after dark."

"And if you don't find them there?"

"I'll hit the local demon pubs till I find a lead."

"That sounds like a plan. Is there anything we can do in the meantime?"

"Worry." 

_Well so much for that open ended question. I think it's time to push._ "How do you feel about Dawn being out there with your younger self? Will she be ok?"

"Bloody, sodding, hell, what do you think I'm so worried about? What if I kill her or worse yet- turn her? I'm sure that will go over with Buffy just great. You see pet, I killed your sister, but it wasn't really me, it was just my past self.  That ranks right up there with the dog ate my homework as the worst sodding excuse of all time."

_I can't help but smile as he turns his back to me and lies down on the couch assuming the typical therapy posture. Secrets are easier to share if your not looking at the person you're telling them too. _"So you're concerned about what her sister will do to you?"

            "Bloody hell, yes! Buffy will have me staked faster then you can say filet mignon if anything happens to Dawn."

            "Even though Dawn's an adult and got herself into this fix?"

            "Doesn't matter, I have to protect her." 

            "It sounds like there are some issues there."

            "Look Buffy acts as my conscience. My love for her and my word are all that's keeping me on the straight and narrow. I like mayhem, chaos, and terror. Demon, remember?" 

            His face deforms and the glare in his golden eyes rapidly reminds me that I am not dealing with one of my typical clients. I hold my ground though, a sociopath is a sociopath.  "Tell me about Dawn." 

"The monks made her, she's Buffy's sister, end of story."

"How did you two meet?"

"She got kidnapped when she was a kid by this vamp, Angelus, who was trying to end the world. God, I just realized that even in those stupid memories the monks made up I act like a bloody poof. Something about her makes me go all noble and protective. You know, I really love her?" 

"Yeah, I can tell", I reply in compassion. He has such a tender look on his face at the moment, it's almost wistful.  "Let's go back for a minute. Why would turning Dawn be worse then killing her? I would think that having her sister around in some form would be better than not having her at all."

"You don't know her. She takes her duties as The Slayer very seriously."

"Yet she lets you live?" I cock my eyebrow at him.

"Yeah, and it tears her up sometimes, makes her hate me. She thought that being blessed with super powers would make everything black and white. It's not really her fault though, everyone sees things black and white when they're young, and she really wasn't supposed to live long enough for things to get so confusing."

"What do you mean?"

"You see, slayers don't usually live much past their teens. Buffy passed her expiration date a long time ago. But it didn't help it that the Watcher's council pumps Slayers full of all this rhetoric. _Demons are evil. You must kill, blah, blah, blah_.

"It sounds Buffy is as confused as her sister. What do you get from this relationship?" 

He seems to ponder the question briefly and then smarts off, "Well, there's the sex. It's absolutely mind-blowing what that girl can do in bed. There's this thing she does with her tongue….."

_What a typical adolescent response. If he thinks that's going to shock me he's got another thing coming._ "Mm hmm, so you're sexual compatible and what else…" 

He turns a little more serious and replies, "I guess- I get a family and friends- bunch of wankers that they are." 

"And…" 

 He goes so quiet that I'm sure he's not going to answer, but then the words start to trickle forth. They sound as if they are being dragged from someplace deep within his gut. His piercing blue eyes focus on me intently, and it's as if he's trying pour his emotions directly into my soul.

"Buffy is everything that is good and just. Wherever she is, and wherever she goes she brings the light. She sees the man, not the monster. When she died she took the light with her, and I almost died too. Dawn pulled me back, and I stayed for her, but now…" 

"Look, I know I'm damned, but if anything happened now, I'd wait outside the gates of heaven just to be near her." 

"So what do I get out of my relationship with Buffy? I get a partner; the strongest woman I have ever known. I get the family and friends that I thought were lost to me when I became a vampire. When I chose the dark. And if Buffy is my light and my redemption, then Dawn is my sanity, and I would do anything, anything, to protect them."

The intensity of his words has rendered us both speechless, but we are too new to each other to be comfortable in the intimacy of silence and after a few seconds he begins to speak.

"We've been talking for almost an hour, but you haven't said much."

"It's one of the hallmarks of a good therapist. Listen, give people a chance to talk, and they usually solve their own problems. The trick is asking the right questions to get them started." I change the subject, "I'm worried about your sister. Do you think anyone's checked on her by now?"

"If you're nervous about her squealing on us, don't be; with a temperature as high as she had she probably doesn't even remember she's seen us." He stands and looks at me, his eyes taking on a speculative gleam. "You know, I might be trapped by the sun, but you aren't.  I bet I can find some clothing to fit you, and then you could get what Paige needs with no one the wiser." ~Buffy~

The core group gathered around Dawn's painting, where it lay on the oft-repaired coffee table in the Summers' living room, and listened to Willow give her report.

 "It looks like someone pushed a bubble of energy into and through the canvas", explained Willow.

"By someone, you mean Dawn", stated Buffy. 

Willow answered with a shake of her long hair.  "Most likely, but it could be someone or something else. I would bet on Dawn though, if it had been anything else, Spike would have at least attempted to tear it apart, and we would have seen more damage at the hospital."

"So where are they?" Buffy thrust herself out of the chair impatiently and began to pace around the room.

"I'm not quite sure yet", said Willow.  "There is an opening at the center of the painting like the mouth of a balloon, but right now it doesn't appear to lead anywhere. It could have been a tunnel to some other dimension that's contracted in upon itself so that it only looks like a bubble, or they could actually be trapped in the painting."

"Like something in that Robin William's movie "What Dreams May Come?", asked Xander. 

            Willow shrugged helplessly.

"You know the one where his wife dies and he slogs around in all that paint."

"I know the movie, Xander, I just don't know what it's like wherever they are", replied Willow sharply, taking her frustration out on her friend.

"So we do a spell, and we get them back, right?"

"It's not that easy Buffy, this wasn't created with a spell. What ever did this used pure energy. We can't duplicate that."

~Spike~

I've spent the better part of the night searching without catching hide nor hair of 'em. Did have one lucky break though, the word at the local pub puts Granny and Peaches abroad. That raised the odds of Dawn surviving this little disaster by fifty percent. I'd give her a seventy-five percent shot if I could lock up Dru for a while. Nibblet's always had me wrapped around her little finger; she knows just what to say to capture my attention, and I never was one to eat someone that interested me.

I take a right and start angling my way eastward toward the Whitehall district. Dru and I use to keep a crib there. It was always easy pickings there with all the whores and drunks about. The constables had too much on their plates to notice when those lost souls go missing. I can remember the time Dru and I came upon this prostitute and her john, and we took them and dressed them up in the other's clothes and … I stop, disgusted with myself, telling stories like that to Dawn is part of what got us into this mess.

Wandering between warehouses and alleys gives a person a lot of time to contemplate life. I can't help thinking about what Doc and I talked about. There was so much I left out. I didn't tell her about all the time I spent trying to drag Buffy down into the dark. I'm not sure if I really meant it even when I was saying those things to her, 'cause every action I took drove both of us further and further into the light. I hope I get a chance to tell her what I told the Doc about her being my light. Maybe if I actually put it out there she'd understand a little more. We've come so far, but getting Buffy to accept new things is like an ant moving a mountain one grain of sand at a time. I wonder if she'd agree to a little family thera….

 "Bloody hell!" I explode, as I trip and almost fall over the legs of an old drunk. Not one of my most graceful moments, I'm glad Xander wasn't around. I'm sure he would have come up with some snide comment.  I kick the drunk in frustration, but he just rolls over without a sound, dead. 

"Well, let's see what killed you, you rheumy ol' sod." I haul him up by the collar of his coat and take a look at his neck. "Why, lookie here, someone's been feeding on you, mate. Bet they gotta buzz too".  The smell of alcohol and human excrement had almost masked the odor of blood, not that there was much left. I brought my nose down to his neckline and gave it a good sniff. All I could smell was myself. Hallelujah! The first positive sign I've had this evening that I'm close to locating them. 

I drop the corpse, and go to wipe my hands on my jeans eager to get moving, but stop. The stickiness on my hands strikes me wrong, it doesn't the feel of blood or vomit or any of the other sundry fluids that commonly accumulate around corpses. I hold out my palm toward the moonlight, and examine the viscous golden goo that has affixed itself to my hand. Rolling some of the stuff off between my fingers, I give it a sniff. Linseed oil? Now what would linseed oil be doing on an old bum like this?  I pull back, and examine the corpse with fresh eyes. 

Nicer clothes than I'd first thought, not new, but good quality. The smell of the alcohol is wrong too. What is it? I'm sure I've smelled it before. I rack my brains trying to remember, and then it comes to me, wood spirits, or wood alcohol, or something like that. Dawn sometimes used it to clean her brushes. A nasty thought forms in the back of my mind, and I stoop down to take a closer look at the corpse's hands.  The nailbeds are encrusted and stained with a multitude of colors. I give his fingertips a sniff and confirm my fears…oil paint.

~Dr. Lawrence~

            "Who are you?" Paige's eyes fluttered open and then closed again. Her voice was breathy and the rash had spread across her neck and shoulders. I sponged off her forehead and neck with a wet rag. The heat of her skin made it dry to the touch almost instantly.

 "Shsh, I'm nobody", I replied.

            "I thought… Willy said you were a doctor." 

So she did remember her unorthodox visitors. "Would me being a doctor make you feel better?" 

"It's okay…no leeches though, nasty slimy things."

I examine the marks on the girl's arm and feel like crying. "Of all the stupid, ignorant practices, I can't believe that they bled you." 

I help her sit up against the pillows. "Do you think you could drink something for me?" She nods and I bring the cup of willow bark tea to her lips. She takes a gulp and makes a face.

 "I know it tastes nasty, but it will help bring down your fever", I say forcing some more down her. I'd discovered when I went to the apothecary's that 'BC Powder' one of the earliest forms of aspirin contained codeine, and I didn't want to risk giving it to her on top of the laudanum she was already taking. I wish I had paid more attention in organic chemistry so that I could whip up something more effective, but all I remember about early antibiotics is that one type was made from moldy orange rind. If the fever doesn't break soon I swear I'll find some and make her eat it.

"Where's William?"

"Your brother's dead, sweetheart, it was just the fever making you think he was alive."

Her eyes close again, and her breathing slows with sleep. The grandfather clock chimes the hour, 4 AM, I hope he comes in while she's asleep. _Heck, I hope he comes home period. He's my only link to my own time, and I think I'm being justifiably terrified at the thought of anything happening to him._

~Dawn~

I can't believe I fell asleep, emotional exhaustion must be better then any sleeping pill. For the first time, since I went into the hospital, I wake up without being disoriented. I know exactly where I am, and I can only wish it was a nightmare that I could wake up from. Lying still with my eyes closed I take inventory of my surroundings; the soft coolness of fabric twines itself around my feet and I know I'm still on the bed where I passed out. I can tell I'm lying on my side with my arms twisted above my head; it feels like I've been tied to one of the bed posts. The last sensation I identify makes me gasp and open my eyes; a cadaver-cool form spoons against my back like a lover. I know it is Drusilla, the round softness of her breasts presses against my shoulder blades and her long hair tickles the back of my neck.  Apprehensively, I realize that the nightgown she dressed me in has become bunched up around my waist, and that her arm lies across my bare hip with her hand dangling between the vee of my legs.  

The awareness of her fingertips nestled among my wiry curls both scares and excites me. I don't mean for it to, I don't want it to, but my body responds with a gush of moisture, wetting the inside of my thighs. I wiggle trying to dislodge her hand from its madding perch, and give exploratory tug on the rope. The movement pulls the strands around my wrists tighter, and wakes the sleeping tiger at my side.  She licks the side of my neck, and kisses my shoulder. Sliding her fingers deeper she parts me, probes me; I struggle, but she pulls me back against her, covering my legs with one of her own.

She raising her finger to her lips tastes my juices. "Mmm, salty and tart, just like fish and chips."

_Eew!__ Ok, that did it, I'm definitely not turned on anymore! I hear Spike ask in a sleepy grumble, "Did you say something, pet?"_

"Can I play, Spike? Can I….

"Sure, pet, whatever you want, just don't break it or you won't get your portrait done."

Well, if Spike thought he could use a portrait as leverage against her killing me then maybe I could use it to get out of doing what ever she has planned. Twisting, I tumble off the side of the bed to land half strangled by the bed curtains. Drusilla kneels above me and looks down to see where I've gone. "Oops-a-daisy, the chickie fell out of the nest and now the fox is coming." 

She leans down, and her long hair comes within reach of my fingers. I yank it as hard as I can, and even with my hands tied up I must have got in a good one because she shrieks and summersaults off the bed into my lap. _Which, by the way, is not a good place to have an angry vampire.___

"Naughty dolly! Babies aren't supposed to hurt their mommies." Fangs bared, she grabs me by the neck, choking me.

"Cor, this is almost as entertaining as the pit fights", says Spike with a smirk as he leans over the two of us. I look up at him, and plead with my eyes for him to get this crazy bitch off of me. He must have got the message because he tugs her away saying, 

"Don't kill her yet, pet, she still has a commission to finish."

The pressure of her hands eases a little and I squeak out the word, "light". The pressure eases a little more, and I manage to croak out, "I need light if I'm to do the portrait."


	4. lost

Real 

Ch 9

~Dawn~

I don't even want to know where Spike got the art supplies. My nose wrinkles in disgust as I examine the dried blood on the pallet knife. I follow him down an interior hallway, carrying a double armful of supplies and trying not to trip over the chains he's hobbled me with. We are moving to another room in the same building, this one has two banks of outside windows that have been shuttered to prevent the sunlight from entering. Without saying a word, he places the stolen canvas and easel between them, and then runs my chains through an eye bolt in the floor. He turns quickly and opens the shutters, backing away as the rectangle of light grows. The toes of his shoes are a mere inch from the sunlight that could burn him. _I've always wondered where that comes from, that willingness to dare the light.  He plays with it the way a cat plays with a snake, batting at it, poking it, daring it to strike him. _

            The open windows leave the easel bathed in a pool of sunshine, and I turn the big three foot by five foot canvas long ways as he moves one of the red brocade sofas to a place just beyond the sunbeam's leading edge. Then I watch from the safety of my sunlit haven as he follows my instructions and drapes the folds of the red satin sheet so that the peaks and valleys pool interestingly on the floor. I'm struck by the oddest sense of déjà vu. _Can you have déjà vu about something that happens in the future?_ _It's just that he's always done this for me. He's always set up my props and escorted my models. In a weird way, I feel like I'm home and not home at the same time._ The moment is broken as Drusilla comes in, wrapped in another red sheet, and hissing at the sunlight.

"Don't worry, luv, I've made sure the sun won't touch you. You lay down and sleep, and when you wake up you'll have a pretty picture and a snack".  He glances over his shoulder and gives me a roguish look. 

I can't believe he's trying to comfort her by offering me as a snack! I hate to tell him, but I do not intend to be an addition to anyone's diet. I now have a nice pointy wooden paint brush in my hand, and the first vamp that comes near me it going to get a taste, even if it is Spike.

            He has decided that I am to do a semi-recumbent nude, so that I might capture the seductive nature of his lovely princess. Gag! I would have put her in the middle of all her toys, thrown some skulls in for good measure, and called it a portrait of madness. 

Drusilla arranges herself on the couch so that sheet falls, revealing one perfect white breast crowned with a dusky rose nipple. Against the dark red backdrop of the couch her skin becomes so pale that it seems luminescent, and I am almost excited by the challenge of trying to capture the porcelain transparency of her skin with its lacy tracery of blue veins. Her face turns toward me, and a hungry smile plays about her mouth…_ her eyes are hypnotic_. I shake my head to clear my mind, and continue to set up my paints and palette within easy reach on the floor.

Spike lingers within view of the canvas, foiling any thought that I might have had about painting a picture that would take me to safety, so I give myself over to the art process. Drusilla's face has all the ethereality of a Renoir nude, but her body is lithe and almost wiry in its strength. I instruct Spike to partially drape the sheet across her torso so that it enhances more then it reveals. Mystery and allure have always been my trademarks, and Drusilla's beauty cries out for that touch. 

My breathing slows, and I feel my body and mind enter that Zen state where paint on canvas is transformed into art.  My arm becomes an extension of my eye, and I work the whole canvas treating the background and foreground as one unit. The red and gold brocade of the couch blends with the black of her hair as it spreads out over the creamy whiteness of her shoulders. I squeeze some ultrameridian blue onto my pallet to capture the low lights of her raven hair. Cleaning my brush, I begin to work in ocher and umber trying to capture the way the stained and tattered wallpaper kisses her knee above the sofa back. Continuing to paint, I move on to the bloodless white skin of her legs as they lie in sharp contrast with the background. Nothing is ever truly white though, not even a vampire's skin, and I add the barest hints of burnt sienna to some areas and cadmium red in others.  Her far leg is raised slightly, and her lower one is tucked coquettishly beneath it.  The shadows between them hint at things …_well, things that I just don't want to think about_.  

The brush licks at the canvas, stroking the shadow of her waist where it arches against the cushion.  Everything is thick and layered with texture. I work swiftly, trying to capture the physical essence of the woman before me.  An impulse hits me and I wonder what would happen if I took my hand and pushed. Would I be inside her? Would we become some sort of weird Dru/Dawn amalgam? The thought gives me the willies; I push it aside and continue to paint…and paint…and paint.

I work until I am almost dead with exhaustion. The sun's already going down. I can hardly believe I've worked all day without a break, and my arm aches so bad that it would probably be less painful to chop it off. And I'm hungry! My tummy growls loud enough to be heard, especially by vampiric hearing, maybe it will remind Spike that I need actual human food. 

Speaking of Spike…I look around and he's gone. It's just me and Drusilla again. _Oh shit, she's realized I've stopped painting, and the look on her face is not one of lasting gratitude! She's hungry, too, and she's staring at me like I'm an O positive popsicle. I move toward the windows holding my paintbrush ready in case she decides to rush me._

Drusilla begins to stalk me, herding me backwards until I'm at the end of my tether.  I remember one of the self defense lessons my Spike taught me- decoy and distraction. I shout Spike's name as loud as I can and point toward the door, and sure enough, she turns. I don't think she could have been as surprised as I was when he came through the door carrying a greasy newspaper wrapped bundle, and dragging a brown haired teenager, a bit younger than me. The boy catches my eyes and pleads with me to tell him what's going on. 

"Here, I thought you might be hungry, so I picked up some fish and chips for you." He tosses the greasy bundle at me.  "And Dru, I didn't forget you."

  She prances toward him clapping her hands like a little kid getting a treat. He smiles fondly at her and thrusts the boy into her arms. Quick as a cobra, she sinks her teeth into him with audible relish. She is so happy that she's purring and smacking her lips as she feeds. I know I should do something, something heroic like Buffy would, but it happens so fast that I can only stand there frozen in horror and watch. Spike smiles at Drusilla, taking delight in the pleasure she shows at killing. Leaning over he sinks his fangs into the other side of the boy's neck, and they stand there slurping him like two high school sweethearts sharing a milkshake. All too soon the boy drops from between them to lie in a broken heap on the floor. 

The boy's death releases me from my shocked paralysis, and I crawl, as far away from the two of them as my chain will allow, retching and crying. My stomach has been so empty for so long that nothing comes up but bile. Lost in my own cowardliness and misery, I never see the brown booted toe until the kick sends me rolling. I try to protect myself by curling up into a ball, just like he taught me. The memories of those training lessons make the contrast between his actions now even worse. Right now, I hate him, and that hurts worse then any physical pain I might have from being kicked. 

"Something bothering you? You act like you've never seen me kill before."

"I have never seen you kill a human; you've always protected me from that." The last bit comes out half wail and half accusation, and I look up at him with tear filled eyes. We stare at each other for along time, neither one of us breaking contact, until Drusilla comes up and tugs on his arm.  

"Leave me alone, woman, can'tcha see I'm busy", he says as he turns on her angrily, but she laughs and kisses him, running her hands up and down his chest over the fabric of his shirt.

 "Would my boy like to be naughty?"

A kaleidoscope of emotions plays across his face, and it settles into a caricature of lust.  He kisses her back hungrily, and I am shut out of his thoughts like a stray mutt chained in the yard.  She leads him back the couch all the while undressing him and whispering endearments that make my stomach crawl. His shirt falls to the floor giving me a view of his broad shoulders and well muscled back, and I wince as her nails leave red welts across the pale skin of his shoulders. 

The only word I know to describe my view of their foreplay is surreal, it's like I'm invisible to them, and they show no inhibition about me watching. Groping around in the backseats of cars with high school boys, and a few stolen minutes of watching Janice's father's video tapes has not prepared me for this. It's sensual and erotic, and the power of his passion leaves me quivering in turmoil. My mind is a confusing mixture of emotion. I hate him for killing that boy, am angry with him for loving someone other than Buffy, _and in all honesty_ – I want him, and I wish it was me in his arms. Chained and squatting in my corner, I try to imagine what it would be like to have him as a lover- try to imagine myself in Drusilla's place, being sucked, and licked, and touched. Involuntarily, my hand moves to stroke myself though the fabric of my gown; her eye catches mine, and suddenly I am invisible no more.

"William, you're being rude. Me thinks our guest would like to join us."

"And you'd like that would you, pet?" He looks between the two of us, with a wicked gleam in his eyes. Then swaggers over and gestures for me to extend my legs so that he can unshackle me. The chains drop of with a clank. Then running his hand slowly down my arm, he captures it and begins to peel my fingers from the forgotten paintbrush that I still hold in my grasp.

"You weren't thinking of using this on me, now were you?" He drops the wooden brush on the floor, and encircling my wrists in his large square palms and strong tapered fingers; he pulls me so tightly against his chest that I have to tilt my head back to look into his face.  Spike's eyes search mine, looking for something, for what I am not sure.  I try to remind myself of who this man will be in my future: my pseudo-parent, my sister's lover, my friend, but nothing means much at this moment with the feel of his body against mine. 

 I've wanted this so much, and I wanted this for so long, that I shiver inside with both terror and expectation. Spike's hands roam across my body and his touch burns me through the shear linen of the paint spattered nightgown that I wear.  Dru joins us and begins to push my gown up from behind, her claws scratch lightly over my thighs and buttocks. She lingers at my lower back running her tongue up my spine, and then kissing my neck she pulls the nightgown over my head and I am left naked standing between them.

Drusilla turns me toward her and running her hands up my stomach, she cups my breasts pinching their nipples. Hunger and lust make me light headed, and I find myself leaning back against Spike's chest as he cradles me between his arms. Our motions become dreamlike and kissing and touching, the three of us sway together.

Thigh to thigh and breast to back, Drusilla's hand snake's between my legs stroking the center of my being. Gently Spike brings his lips down on mine, kissing me tenderly, and it feels so good, so right.

  "Such a pretty little flower, don't worry, my boy will rip the petal right off," Drusilla murmurs. 

At Drusilla's words he stops. I look into his eyes, his familiar blue eyes, and all I can see is my own confusion mirrored there. He reaches up, his fingertips trailing along my face, and captures one of my braids between his fingers. The heavy plait falls across my shoulder and slides down until the white bow comes to rest on my chest above where my heart would be. He lays his hand on top of it, and I can feel my heart beating against the flesh of his palm. My hand covers his and I move it to my breast. "It's okay", I say with a slight nod, "I trust you".  

His eyes turn a steely gray, and he holds me away from him, his fingers digging painfully into the skin of my upper arms. Looking me in the eyes, he mouths silently, _"Run!"  His features morph and he lunges across me, dragging Drusilla into his arms. With the suddenness of a tiger, he sinks his fangs into her neck. _

I grab up the discarded nightgown and make a break for the door before he changes his mind. Thundering down the steps as if I had the wild hunt baying at my heels, I pause only long enough to tug the material over my head before breaking out on to the streets. I continue to run; my bare feet slapping the cold stone cobbles in panic.

_Occurs at the same time Dawn is painting_

~Dr. Lawrence~

_How did women move in this century? I admit crawling down a tree is not something that was probably done with any frequency, but I feel weighted down just walking with all these layers on._ I hope no one saw me. I tuck my skirt and shake out the heavy petticoat, and head toward the servant's entrance. Rapping on the door, I try to adjust my demeanor to what I imagine a nurse in the late part of the nineteenth century would act like. _Ha! _I knew all those historical romance novels I've read would come in handy someday.__

It had taken some talking to convince the vampire that I could do this, but he had finally agreed. I was to present myself to his family as a nurse for his sister. She needs consistency in her treatment and at least I will be there to stop them from bleeding her again. 

The door is opened by a heavy woman in an immaculate black and white uniform. She wears a dust cap on her head with the no nonsense air of a drill sergeant. I'm not sure if women shake hands in this day and time, so I just nod my head and smile. "Hello, the doctor sent me. He said that you were needing a nurse."

"Oh, right then, you must be here for Miss Paige. The woman's brow wrinkles in confusion. 'Odd that, nobody told me to expect you. Come along, I'll introduce you to the Missus."

I follow her up the same stairs that I snuck down only hours before to steal some food from the pantry. They are much easier to navigate in the daylight. The way is narrow and the steps are so shallow that you can not place your whole foot down. I am surprised when she leads me right to Paige's door and knocks.

"Ma'am, the doctor sent over a nurse for Paige."

I am surprised by the appearance of the old woman who sits in the chair by the girl's bedside. He hadn't mentioned that they'd been raised by their grandmother.

"Oh, good! When I asked yesterday, he said there was no one he could send."

"I was available."

"Are you from the States?"

"Yes." _No use trying to hide my accent._

"And you have experience dealing with those suffering from illness?" 

_She's looking at me like I'm here to steal the family silver. I'd better warm up the body language a little. _"Yes, ma'am", I smile and extend my arms out opening up my posture. _See, I have nothing to hide.  "I've worked in the medical profession for the past ten years."  _Of course, that was as a psychiatrist and not a nurse, but let's not quibble_._

Her voice is firm, causing me to revise my age estimate downward. She probably isn't as old as I am and yet she looks as frail and bent as a geriatric patient in her seventies. 

 "Momma?  I want to see William." Paige's eyes still gleam with a feverish brightness and her voice is breathless and weak.

"William's not here, child. He went away along time ago, and he can't come back." She looks defeated as she sits and rubs her daughter's hand.  She turns and stares over her shoulder at me, her eyes filling with anguish. "Paige is my last living child. Her brother, William, was murdered seven years ago. You will… You will do everything you can to see she's alright?"

"Yes, ma'am, I'll give her the best care I know how to." _Which is certainly a lot better then you'd be able to get in this century from anyone else._

"I think I shall go lay down for a while, since you're here. Do you need anything before I go?"

"I would like some ice, if some could be found. It would help bring down her fever."

"Ice? I'll tell Mrs. Norris to flag the ice man down when she hears his cart come by."

The rest of the morning alternates between forcing willow bark tea down Paige's throat every time she opens her eyes, sponging her down with ice water when she grows restless, and changing the sweat dampened sheets when they become soggy to the touch. The diligent work pays off though, and by noon, the fever seems to have broken. The restless turning and tossing eases and Paige seems to fall into a more normal sleep.

Hours later, Paige's voice wakes me from the light doze I have fallen into.

"May I have some water?" 

"Yes, of course."  I help her sit up, and hold the glass against her cracked lips as she drinks. 

When she finishes, she closes her eyes, and leans back against the pillows. "Who are you?"

_Oh dear, here we go again. _"I'm your nurse; you have scarlet fever, remember?"

"I remember seeing you come through the window with William." Her voice is scratchy, and I can tell her throat still hurts.

"That was just a dream, brought on by the fever." _God, I hate lying about this! I supposed help my patients make sense out of what they experience not lie to them_.

"I suppose you'll tell me the other time I saw him was just a dream, too." 

"What other time?"

"It was night… the night after they buried him. 

"What happened in the dream?"

 "It wasn't a dream", she said adamantly. "I went to the graveyard that night, and I saw him. His hands were all bloody and his clothes were covered with dirt. I thought we had buried him alive.  I called to him, but he sprinted away.  I ran after him trying to keep him in sight. I had almost caught up to him…" 

She starts choking and I offer her a drink of water, but she waves me away. Her eyes are watering now, but I'm not sure it's from the coughing or if she's crying because of what she saw. I wait patiently for her to organize her thoughts.

Slowly, she wipes her eyes and carries on.  "I watched my brother rip the throat out of one of the grounds keepers.  I think… I fainted then for I have no memory until the next morning when I woke up on the front porch steps.

"That had to be quite a traumatic dream, for a young girl."

"Stop, just stop…" She grabs my hand, "I know my brother is here. I may not have understood what I saw when I was twelve …Doctor, but I've read Mister Stoker's Dracula since then, and I know what he is.  

"Your brother is dead." I pick up the water pitcher from its stand and go out in the hallway, fighting the urge to tell her the truth.

The vampire grabs me by the arm and pulls me into the linen closet across from Paige's room, surprising a strangled cry from my lips. 

"We need to talk."  

"What do you think you're doing? Your sister is already convinced that you are here! She keeps waking up and asking for you. You're just lucky; everyone's convinced she's delirious."

"Look, I need some information. I've figured out where they probably have Dawn, and it may come down to a fight to get her back. Now, I know you've got martial art's training of some kind, but do you have any weapons training?" 

"No, I'm only a blue belt in tai kwon do. And do you realize your sister knows you're a vampire?"

"What!" 

"She saw you! When you arose from your tomb, or whatever it is you vampires do!"

"I bloody well clawed my way out of my coffin. Hmm…"

"What's the hmm for?"

"My sister was lucky, that's all. If she'd have actually gotten to me she wouldn't be around right now. When a vampire first rises the hunger overwhelms them, they feed from anything that moves until the craving for blood is satisfied."

"You mean you didn't take her back to the house after she fainted?"

 "She said someone took her home?" He looks baffled, and then shakes his head. "Look it doesn't matter, Paige has been dead to me for over seventy years. Right now, my job is to find Dawn and get us home. And tonight you're my backup, so pay attention.

_I understand his point, but damn those sociopathic tendencies are really getting on my nerves_. __

~Spike~

I turn and stare as I hear her stumble over a pile of trash and send it clattering. It looks like Doc's night vision is a bit on the weak side.

 "Another alley? And now the hem of this blasted skirt is all wet. Please explain to me again why I had to wear it? I can't fight in it."

Hell's bells, she whines almost as much as Harris.  "You are wearing the bloody skirt, because women in this day and age don't wear pants, and you're too curvy to pass for a boy." 

            She sighs.

We continue to trudge in silence until we get to the place where I'd found the body the night before. "I ran out of time last night to track them any farther than this. Gods, I wish I had the witch here; she could follow the trail in a blink. We, on the other hand, will have to wait for the dew to settle so that I can see the tracks."

"Witch? Witches are real, too? Do you know how often I've had clients say they were witches, and then told them witches weren't real."

"Yeah, witches are real; don't get you panties in a wad, most of the one's claiming to be witches ain't.  Buffy's got this friend- Red though, who's a mighty powerful witch. She's had some addiction problems with the black stuff lately, but I bet she's working on some spell to bring us back, right now."

"Do you really think so?" Her voice is childishly hopeful.

 "I'm sure of it." I look up between the buildings and watch the clouds surround the moon like a halo. God, I've missed London. The fog rises from the earth in ghostly patches in a way that just sends chills down my spine. Always felt like the boogieman was waiting right around the corner. 'Course after I became a vampire, I was the boogieman.  The damp mist makes the corpse's heel marks shine like two slimy snail trails pointing the direction from which he was dragged. The trail is obscured in places by other tracks, but the lines are distinctly parallel and can be picked up again with a little scouting.  

We've traveled about five blocks from where we started when the surrounding buildings start to feel familiar and I begin to remember the summer that Dru and I lived in the offices of an abandoned warehouse near here. The place is easy to find now that I know where to look.

I pull Doc to a halt beside the building's door. "Look, you stay behind me on the stairs, and when we find them you just back me up with the crossbow."

"But I don't know how to use it." 

_Well, neither did Harmony and she still terrorized people with it. _"I don't want you to use it. I just want you to wave it around and look menacing. And for god's sake keep your hand away from the trigger. Ya got the cross I gave you?"

She nods. 

I head up the stairs quietly. I signal Doc to stay where she is and listen. Sounds yes, but no breathing, no heartbeat, and I smell… BLOODY HELL! I kick in the door, and am met with a sight that stops me in my tracks.

            He…I...He's kneeling, bare assed, with his teeth sunk into Dru's jugular. This isn't a normal love bite, this is 'control', and I can feel my…his… mind pushing down on hers keeping her still.  My entrance breaks his concentration, and she thrusts him away, and crawls to couch whimpering and tearing at her hair. 

.           "Where's Dawn? What did you do with her?"

He wipes his mouth on the back of his arm. "You'll not find her here, mate. The bint's escaped."

Gone? Frustration and relief mix and I lash out, punching him in the nose. "Wipe that arrogant look off your face ya buggerin' idiot." _Damn, that felt good, now I know why Buffy does it to me so often_. 

Dru springs up from the couch tackling the two of us, clawing and scratching like wildcat on LSD. "Wrong, wrong, it's all wrong."  She reaches up and slashes me…him cross the face crying, "Nothing's left but paint and ashes." It takes the two of us to subdue her, and I'm not sure which of us lands the punch that knocks her unconscious. Doc kicks a set of manacles over to me and I slap them on her wrists.

"What did she do that for?" Spike asks as he cradles his bleeding cheek. "I didn't do anything, except get rid of the little bitch." 

"I'd advise you to get used to it, mate", I tell him as I toss him a pair of pants. "Summers' women have a way of ticking her off."

"Doc, you stay here with Drusilla. I'm taking mini me. We'll be back when we find Dawn."

"I ain't going anywhere with you, ya white haired ponce."

"You'll do as I say, you stupid 'git."

"You're not my bloody sire."

"No, your sire's lying unconscious with a crossbow trained on her. A crossbow held by my friend over there." I stifle a laugh as Doc makes an effort to look menacing.

"Another one of your bloody thralls? If you're so god-awful powerful, why the hell did you come back here?"

_Thralls?__ Just what the hell has Dawn been telling him? _

I drag him out the door; calling out warnings to Doc over my shoulder about how to deal with Dru.  We head out on to the streets shouting Dawn's name. Déjà vu. I'm struck by a wave of exasperation; I tell you some days it feels like I've spent half my life hunting that girl.

"So what was with 'controlling' Dru?"

"Nothin', things got outta hand that's all."

"Bollocks!" I slam him up against a convenient wall. "No need to lie, mate, I'll get the memory back sooner or later. Sooner just keeps you standing."

"You can't kill me, ya sodding prick, or you won't be here either."

_He has a point. _ "Well, there's always 'control'. I remember you didn't enjoy it too much when Angelus used it on you, and I bet that I can do even better.  I know the ins and outs of your mind like it was my own. Come to think of it; it is mine. I know what makes me tick. I know every knot to yank, and every button to push. And I know your deepest fears."  I smooth the lapel of his collar with my fingertips, and watch him pale even further. "I can make the next few minutes of our life a living hell, or you can just tell me what I want to know."

            He gives me a disgusted look and attempts to push me away, but he can't even budge me. "I'll have none of that, laddie. Show some respect to your elder." I stare deep into his eyes, forcing my will on his. Our eyes lock, and for just a second I twist his train of thought, stabbing a shaft of fear through his heart.

            "Alright, alright, Dru was just playing one of her games, and I didn't want to go along."

            I maintain eye contact, but back off on the mental pressure.

"Ya know, trying to make me just like her 'evil daddy'. Always dressing up the bints so that they look like Paige or Mother, bringing home babies, and what not. Just couldn't stomach it tonight." 

I quirk an eyebrow at him. I'd forgotten about all those freakin' mind games that Dru used to pull. She'd lost interest after the first fifty years or so. 

"Oh, don't look at me like that. Noticed there weren't any marks on the chit."

            "Just how closely did you check?" 

            "Saw enough to know that sweet cunt of hers ain't ever received visitors."

            The implication of his words hits me, and I slam my fist into the side of his head. I hope he bloody well saw stars! "Watch your mouth, that girl's like a daughter to me."    

            "Ya mean a sister don't you." He smirked. "The bint looks enough like Paige that she gave me a start in that alley."

            "You didn't sleep with her did you?" _Gods, I try to imagine how I'll explain that one to Buffy, shish-a-bob city here I come.  I wonder what I can bribe Dawn with to keep her mouth shut._

"Nah. It was the damn braids. The rug rat looked like she was all of twelve years old." 

I relax in relief and we begin to walk. We go a few more blocks, calling every few steps. After a while, he stops, takes out his tobacco, and begins to roll a cigarette. I wave a Marlborough at him and light one for myself.

He takes a puff. "Sweet, some frenchy import?"

"Nah, you'll not see smokes like these for another sixty years at least."  

"So what's it like in the future?"

How should I answer him? All the triumphs and the failures come rushing to the forefront of my mind. My tongue's paralyzed with the effort of figuring out what to say. 

            "So you gonna tell me?

"No."   

"No!"

"No. If I tell you, you'll just mess things up. What I will tell you is that the future is downright bloody marvelous. There will be blood, shagging, and Slayers." 

"Slayers?"

"Yeah, three of 'em. And the last one's so good she'll break your heart." 


	5. escape and recapture

~Dawn~

What…what?! 

In a rush of panic, I sit up and get a face full of leaves.  

_ I am sleeping in a bush because…?_ Oh! It all comes back in a flash: Dru, the painting, me and Spike, the almost sex, and my… Well, I'm not so sure you could call it an escape; he just kinda let me go.  I thought for a second there he just wanted me to run so he could chase down his prey, but when he didn't catch up with me after a block or two I figured he was just being…well, Spike. The Spike I've always known him to be: the one who terrorizes my dates, who helped me pass history, and the one who protects me. The one who has always protected me.

I crawl out of the bush scratching at my legs and arms. I hope I haven't gotten into something poisonous. Hiding under a bush in a park is not the most comfortable place to spend the night. 

As I crawl from my leafy bower, I look up at the sky. I think it's about 3 or 4 AM. The moon is still up, but the sky is turquoise with the barest hint of pale pink on the horizon. It's a beautiful morning. You'd think I'd be depressed, or anxious, or worried, but I'm not. I just feel alive, starving, but alive. I am a little ticked that I'm still a virgin, I really wanted Spike to, you know, be the first.  Maybe it's better this way… _but his hands were so nice…and his chest… and his lips…and… NO! This is Spike! No daydreaming about your sister's boyfriend!_  Those last few minutes were everything I'd ever dreamed of_, except…  I could have done without the Dru bits. __Ugh! I already have too many hang ups dealing with strong women. I didn't need to add that particular kink to my psyche. _

I go and get a drink out of the park's fountain. Its edges are all covered with slimy green moss. I gulp the cold water and try not to think about what's swimming in it. I couldn't stop drinking it even if I wanted too. I am so thirsty. I drink and drink until the water assuages some of the hunger I feel.  

Horse hooves ring in the distance, and suddenly wandering around in a linen nightgown doesn't feel too safe. I know I have to go somewhere, but where? I haven't a clue where we landed, and I'm not too sure I could even make it back to the warehouse. I wasn't paying too much attention as I was running last night; I was just trying to get away. 

I sit on the edge of the fountain and try to think. _Ok, if I were Spike, where would I go?_ Nothing comes to me. _Crap! I'm not Spike, and I've never been to __England__. I splash my feet in frustration, sending water flying in all directions_. I don't even know anyone… Wait! I may not know a person, but I think I may know a place, and it's a place Spike might know as well._ Now it's just a matter of finding out if it's here during this time.___

_Da dum  da dum da  dada.  Da dum  da dum  da  da_. Humming _Off to See the Wizard_, I try to brush the leaf litter out of my hair so I don't look as scary as the wicked witch of the west. Finishing with that little chore, I set out to find someone who can tell me where the great and powerful OZ might be. Only in this case I'm not so much looking for a single wizard, but a whole group of Watchers. Too bad there's never a yellow brick road around when you need one.

~Dr. Lawrence~

I glance back and forth between the chained vampire and the unfinished portrait. The form on the canvas is fairly complete, but many of the details are missing. It gives the painting an unfocused look in some areas, and I feel the need to clean my glasses. The face especially bugs me. The painted eyes are just vague purple shadows, but the detail on the mouth is exquisite. I wonder what Dawn was avoiding?

The dark haired beauty stirs and shakes her head, finally waking. 

"I'm Dr. Lawrence, and you're Dru?" I settle back on the couch with the crossbow resting beside me and a cross in my lap. The vampire shakes her head, and looks at the chains on her wrists.

 "Daddy's gone away and my boys, too. Are you my punishment?" she asks in child-like singsong.

"No, I'm not your punishment. I'm just staying with you until they get back."

"My boy didn't come back right. Wants to dance with the light now, he does."

 She drags her finger through the corner of the palate lying on the floor, swirling the colors with her finger. 

"Black and white makes gray. Nasty.  Dirty. The color of ashes, it is."

 She throws the wooden pallet at me making me duck. It strikes the wall with a resounding clatter and then wobbles drunkenly across the floor. She wipes the remaining paint on her bare thigh. The row of jagged slashes resembles totem marks I studied in anthropology so long ago. 

 "The fates speak in riddles. They chatter, asking me their nasty questions."  

"Dru, what are the voices telling you?" She's obviously psychotic. The mumbled speech, the disjointed sentences, and the voices all point to it. Her behavior patterns may be so ingrained by this point that haldol wouldn't help, but I'd sure like to give it a try. I wonder what effect it would have on vampire physiology.

"They're telling me wicked lies. My boy couldn't love a Slayer. It's wrong! Wrong! Slayers are for bleeding. "

"How do you know he loves a slayer?" 

She chooses to ignore me and continues talking to herself.

"Time's all knotty, but I can cut the strand that binds them."

She kneels and tugs at the chains. My hand sneaks toward the crossbow. Human males are supposed to be more dangerous than females, but in almost every other species it's the females you have to watch out for, and I have a feeling that this is the case with vampires. Her struggles with the chains go unrewarded. She turns her attention toward me as I suddenly become useful to her.

"Will you take these off? They chaff my wrists."

"No, sorry, I don't have the key."

"No one does, it's gone off on its own. My boy, Spike, he likes his games. Do you like games? We could play.  She licks her lips and begins to sing. "_Catch the key and lock her up, lock her up, lock her up. Catch the key and lock her up, my fair lady."_

Oh my, talk about a career challenge. I may open up a whole new sub-specialty dealing with psychotic vampires.  If only I could publish it.  Of course if I did, I'd get to see the psychward from a whole new perspective. 

~Dawn~

             It has already been a long day and it is only about ten according to the chiming of the grandfather clock in the walnut paneled study.  I had weaseled my way into the Watchers Council headquarters by throwing myself on the mercy of the woman who had opened the door, calling her Auntie and mumbling about dreams of vampires, slaying, and sleepwalking. I don't think the constable who escorted me believed it for a minute, but the woman backed me up and called me her niece, so there was nothing he could do about it. I just smiled at the nice policeman, and scooted around 'my aunt' into the safety of the foyer; where I promptly turned all girlie girlie and fainted.  Whether it was out of hunger or relief I'm not sure, but it was probably the smartest thing I could have done at that point.  Anyway, now I am clean, clothed, and the in the process of being fed. Although with the grilling they're giving me I might as well be naked and tied to a rotisserie.

The hoi polloi of the Watchers council have gathered around the table and are watching me try not to cram a toasted cheese into my mouth like the ravenous creature that I am.  I make myself behave and take only small bites. Mom would be proud; she was always getting on to me about my table manners. 

"Just who are you, young lady?" says stuffed shirt number one. He reminds me of Quentin Travers, the son of a bitch that almost got Mom and Buffy killed. Probably a relative, he has those same close set beady eyes. 

            "I'm the sister of the Slayer." I take a sip of tea, and manage not to make a face. They make it like Giles does with cream and sugar, _yuk._

            "Funny, you don't sound Portuguese. And as far as I know that young lady is an orphan. So, let me repeat myself, who are you?"

             "And I'll repeat myself; I'm the sister of one of your vampire Slayers. I didn't say it was the current one." 

            "Young lady, you may have used the right words to get in here, but this is not a charitable organization. You will need to be more forthcoming if you desire our help. Now, which slayer?"

It's easy to tune him out. I'd always thought British voices were sexy, but his has all the appeal of a bullfrog. He kinda looks like a bullfrog too, the way his massive double chin sways and expands as he croaks at me. I had thought of a good story before I arrived on their doorstep, but the way he's acting makes me want to edit it even more.  I don't want to provide them with any info that isn't absolutely necessary.

 "A spell went wrong, and I was transported here from the United States. I came here because I need help finding a way back," I say. 

Stuffed shirt number two adds. "There hasn't been a Slayer in the colonies since the 1600's." He is even older then the first man and speaks with nasal whine.

"Knew her did you?" The group around the table titters at the man's expense.

"No. I'm just speculating that this young lady is not what she appears," he said.

"In this case, Rogers is right. I had one of the seers check her out while she was unconscious. They were able to detect a strong energy field surrounding her form."

The table explodes with questions. I slump in my chair, wishing I was invisible. Talk about out of the frying pan and in to the fire. I should have known better than to think they would help. 

"Quiet!" He barks. "There is more. Because of what I found, I had Miss Sutcliff our resident witch examine her blood, and she was able to trace a spell signature to the Order of Dagon."

The table rocks as the group springs to their feet, roaring their questions. He waves his hands and shouts for order. Finally they fall in to an uneasy silence. 

 "Travers, are you saying that monks have inserted a homunculus into our organization?" 

_What the hell's a homunculus? What ever it is I'm sure it's not me._

            "I am uncertain what to think, as you know, the monks have always been our allies against evil. So as a courtesy, I've sent a message to one of their local monasteries; we should have an answer within a day or so."

~Spike~

"You'll not find her this night, mate, sun's coming up."

I ignore him, and continue to walk; concentrating on trying to detect any trace of Dawn. I close my eyes and open myself to my other senses until I am almost overwhelmed by the influx of heartbeats, smells, and heat signatures. I try to sift through the wealth of information searching …

"Sodding bloody hell!" I roar as he grabs my arm, shaking me from my trance.

 "Look you may be suicidal in your old age, but I'm not. The sun will be up in a few minutes. We need to get undercover."

He's damn lucky he's right. 

We pour on the speed and fly back to the warehouse almost as fast as the bats humans have accused us of being. He pauses to laugh briefly at a street vendor, who detects nothing more then an errant breeze as we pass. I am not in the mood.

When we get back to the warehouse, he pulls me to a stop at the base of the stairs. 

"I ain't looking forward to dealing with Dru in the next few minutes. She's going to be mighty ticked that she's chained up. Not to mention the fact that I 'controlled' her over some bint. 

 "Hey, you sunk your fangs into Dru's neck on your own."

"Instead of sinking them into your little thrall, I'll remind you. You owe me." 

"So, what do you want me to do? Take the fall for you; be the Big Bad?"

"Something like that, yeah."

I can't think of any reason not to, so I shrug. 

We head up the stairs with me behind him, game face up, like I'm in charge; when he stops in the blasted door way so sharply that I almost trip over him. What I see makes me force my way around him.  

"Dru! Drusilla! Drop her!" I grab her by forehead and back of the neck, forcing her head up. Doc falls in a heap at our feet. _So much for needing to pretend to be the Big Bad._

"And you! Didn't I tell you not to get too close to her?" I addressed Doc as she lays in a huddle on the floor.

 "I was just handing her a sheet. I…I'm sorry, I didn't think." Doc looks like a rabbit that has just managed to escape a hawk, all wide eyed and twitchy.

"You should have killed her. You should have killed her, and you didn't." Drusilla accuses in a hiss.

For a second I wasn't sure who she was going on about, but then I knew; I could see it in her eyes. Damn that sight of hers! Somehow, she knew about Buffy.

"Dru, shut... your… hole!" 

"I see you… enveloped in light," she sneers. "You'll burn with it till there's nothing left. Nothing left but ashes." 

She plasters her nude body against me, her hands stroking me with familiar caresses. Over a hundred years with this woman. I'd thought our love was eternal. Now, her scent hangs oddly in my nose, all spice and mystery, where I've become accustom to sunshine and wild flowers. 

"It's not too late. It's still there, hiding within you. Don't you want it?"

Some part of me still wants her, wants what she's offering, what she offered. The darkness was everything she promised: glowing, glistening, effulgent. If I were given a choice to do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing. But I'm not going back either.

I feel the others in the room hold their breath as I push her away. She launches herself at me screaming and crying. I don't ever remember seeing her this irate. Her claws streak toward my face with every intention of making mince meat out of me.  I dunk and grab one of the chains twisting up and around her, locking her arms to her sides. Then I push her towards him; trying not to listen to the names she's calling me. 

"Baby, stop, it's not good for you to get yourself upset like this." He makes little hushing noises.

Watching them makes me feel like I'm seeing myself through a long tunnel, everything going a little dark around the edges.

"You'll kill her won't you, baby? You'll kill her for me?" Drusilla pleads with him.

"Of course I'll kill her. I'll kill anyone you want. Come on." He unlocks the chains. "Let's go get you dressed, and I'll make you a nice cuppa tea, and you'll feel all better." He shoots me a dirty look over his shoulder, and leads her from the room.

 "I didn't thank you for rescuing me." Doc presses a hand to her neck. 

It doesn't look like Dru got too much; she's still conscious, and the blood on her neck is already starting to coagulate. The sight of it reminds me of how hungry I am. The prepackaged stuff is bad, but rats taste worse! And that's what I'm going to be reduced to unless we get back soon.

"Aren't you worried about them leaving or something?" She asks.

            "No place to go, sun's up."

"I take it you didn't find Dawn."

            "No, I'll go back out tonight after the sun goes down." I slump exhaustedly into the couch, and stare at the painting. I can imagine it hanging in some grand museum with hundreds of people trooping past it ogling it, wondering about who the model was. "Do you think she'll ever finish it?" 

            "Do you want it finished?"

            "Yeah."  I sit quietly, and contemplate the portrait. I want this whole part of my life finished in more ways then one.  

She finally breaks the silence that's fallen over us. "I want to go check on Paige. I promised her I'd be back this morning."

"Are you sure you're up to it? You haven't had much sleep in the last couple days."

"I'm a doctor. I survived my internship in the hospital on less, and I didn't kill anyone then, and I won't kill your sister now."

"Know you won't. No need to get testy." I raise my hands in sarcastic defense. "You know it wasn't your fault you got bit." I offer by way of apology.

"Wasn't it?" 

"I didn't think to tell you about how she hypnotizes people. That's probably what happened."

"I know hypnosis myself. You can't make someone do anything they don't already want to do."

"Huh? Are you saying that you let Dru bite you?"

"Not consciously, but….maybe subconsciously. You intrigue me. Don't be fooled by this sedate middle aged body, there is still a lot of passion left in here. I'm as susceptible to the romance of vampire lore as the next fool."

"Doc."

"Don't call me that.  You can't park a boat at me and I'm not a dwarf."

"What do you want me to call you?"

"My given name is Teresa."

"Well turn about is fair play, Teresa, why don't you call me by my name? I hear that hesitation in your voice every time we talk."

"Oh! God, I'm so transparent. I didn't mean for you to catch that."

"Give." She's blushing exquisitely, and she can't even look at me. 

"You see, my brother had this dog and his name was Spike."

"What was it, some type of mean old junk yard dog?"

"Hmm"…._she cringes…. "No, not exactly."_

"Well?"

"Long haired chihuaua."

"Aaargh!" I bury my face in my hands. 

"It had a spiked leather collar though," she offers.

"Call me William then."

"What not Willy?" she giggles.

"You really do have a death wish."

"William it is. Friends?"

            "Yeah, friends." I extend my hand and we shake on it. "It will probably be best if you go to Paige anyway. Stick around here and you're just a convenient snack. I'll come by and get you tonight. Just don't go wandering the streets on your own; lots of nasties out, not just vampires."

~Dawn~

As a prisoner, it is my duty to escape, right?  At least that's what I always heard in those stupid war movies that Xander use to make me watch when he babysat me.  I mean here I am, trapped in this place and god knows what they have planned for me, and then they go and offer the very thing that I've always dreamed of; a chance to talk to the monks that made me. 

Duty. It all comes down to duty and responsibility, and Summers girls are all about responsibility. _When did I learn that?_ Was it something the monks planted, or was it Buffy cramming it down my throat all these years? I think the nice little happy pills the doctor had me on are finally out of my system. God, I feel depressed. I get lost in a blue funk for a few minutes and just sorta stare out into space. Duty, yeah, my duty is to get Spike and Dr. Lawrence back to the future. I got us all into this mess; it's up to me to get us all out.

  Ok. So I need to escape. I examine the room, weighing my options. The first thing I look at makes me feel that escaping is going to be easier then I thought. Stupid fools didn't even think to clean off the dresser, everything I need is right here. Thank god, Spike taught me how to pick locks. I give it a couple jiggles with a hat pin, a turn with a button hook, and the door pops open. 

"Great, I've got the door open, now what?" I ask myself in disgust. I still need a plan. So, is there any other place that Spike would think that I would think to go? I cringed at the sound of that last sentence in my head. _Geesh_, this is not the time to start sounding like Buffy.__

What I need now is information, maps, addresses, and such. To bad the Internet isn't around.  So where do you go to find that type information when your stranded in the 1800's? Duh- the library of course! This place is chockfull of Watchers; I know they've got to have a huge one in here someplace.  Now it is only a matter of finding it.

I figure it will be on the first floor somewhere; which means I have to risk the stairs. It looks clear and I make a run for it. Once on the first floor I begin to search, gliding from doorway to doorway, easing them open and peering briefly inside. I found it on my fifth try. The room is huge. It is lined with book cases two stories tall. There are several people scattered here and there, so I dodge in between the stacks, almost bumping into a man wearing a double breasted wool suit.

 "Giles!"

            I find my arms wrapped around the man's waist, before my brain realizes that what I'm seeing isn't possible.

            "Arthur Giles, at your service, miss. Do I know you?" He holds me away from him, and peers at me through half-moon glasses. 

            "I'm Dawn."

            "Ah, the young lady of mystery; Rogers told me about your arrival, but I didn't credit it.  He can be a bit delusional at times you see. Always thinking that…well never mind. But if I may ask, how did you know my name." 

            "You look a lot like your great-grandson. He's my sister's watcher."

            "Great-grandson you say?  And he's a Watcher?  Isn't that smashing!" 

He waves at someone behind me, and I'm sure the jig is up.

            "Ah, Rupert, I want you to meet Miss Dawn." 

            Damn, I hadn't even sensed him there, he is a little bit older then me and has that whole blonde haired, Brad Pitt thing going on. God, what a hottie, if I was planning on sticking around I might make a play for him.

            "What's she doing here? She's supposed to be locked up."       

_Or__ maybe not._

"Nonsense, if she was supposed to be locked up she still would be, and if she's escaped why would she be in the library." He looks at me hopefully.

            "I need to do some research so that I can get back home again."

            "See there, a legitimate reason."

            I watch the young man stomp off in a huff and I wonder how long I have until he tells somebody where I am.

            "Please, forgive my son; he's a bit of a fanatic about doing things by the book. I'm hoping he'll grow out of it. Don't worry, if I stay in the library with you there won't be a problem. Now, what information are you looking for? Maybe I can help. I know my way around these dusty old tombs quite well," he said as he fiddled with his pocket watch, swinging it in a slow arch. The amethyst crystal attached to the stem glittered pulling my eyes toward it.

            "That's pretty."

"Yes, it is isn't it? I found this crystal on a trip to Africa."  He dangled it so that the stone caught the light as it swung back and forth.

            "Miss?"

            "Miss? I asked you what type of information you needed."

_How long have I been sitting here staring at him? _"I need to find out the true name of a vampire called William the Bloody and where he lived when he was a live." 

"Oh, yes, that's easy enough. We keep track of all the newly turned vampires in the London area." 

He started to flip through one of the leather bound books. "Now you said that he was changed in 1880, and you know that for sure?"

"Yes." _When did I tell him that?_

"Why don't you start looking and see if any of these might be the fellow that you are looking for."

The book he placed in my hand was almost half full and started with the year 1870. I thumb through it to January 1880 and begin scanning the pages. The list was broken into columns that contained name, aliases, date turned (if known), sire, and column with just letters in it.  "What is this last column?"

"Oh, that's just where we record who dusted them. There is quite a competition between us to see who can rack up the most kills. See, here are my initials."

I scanned through the next few pages in the book searching without luck for William the Bloody or Spike, but I did find twelve more entries in the slaying column marked A.G. The man was no slouch in the fighting department it seemed. 

"Here it is! How can I find out where this family lives?"

"You'll want the social registry for that. It's over here." He points toward one of the shelves at the rear of the library and led me to it.

He flips through the book, and jots down the address on a piece of paper for me. "That's near here; would you like me to come with you?"

I thought about saying no, but I may need the help to get out of here. A movement seizes my attention and I catch a glimpse Rupert lurking behind the shelves listening. If he overheard us discussing this I'm probably done for. I want to move quickly, before he figures out a way to stop his father from taking me to Spike's. I've seen what type of tests that they came up with for the Slayer, and I've decided I don't feel like staying and becoming their guinea pig when they find out that I'm the Key.

~Buffy~

            Willow carefully poured the red sand in a circle around the painting.

            "Ok guys, this spell will work only if they are trapped inside the painting," said the witch. 

Buffy nodded and chewed on her lower lip. 

 "I say the spell and a portal will open in the center of the portrait. You'll have to move fast because I won't be able to hold it long. I'll give you two hours to find them, and then I'll reopen the portal. You'll need to have everyone gathered around the entry point so that I can pull you out" explained Willow.

"What if we can't find them that fast?" asked Buffy.

"If you can't find them and your not back at the portal in time. I'll give you another two hours and try again. I probably have enough energy for two or three tries before I have to have an extended rest."

"And if they aren't in the painting?" Buffy asked.

"I'm not sure. I feel okay doing this because I'm just opening an intradimensional portal. You won't actual even leave the living room. Opening a transdimensional conduit is different. I'd need to know what the projected terminus is so that I don't send you to the wrong place." 

"Too many big words there Will. How about breaking it down into something the Xan man can understand."

"Ok think of the painting as…as being a soccer ball. The inside space is all one area. So if you were inside the ball you'd be able to look around and see the entire space. That would be the intradimensional portal. Now the outside of the ball is made up of black and white squares. Think of each one of these squares as being another dimension that's touching our own. Only instead of just fifty squares think of billions and zillions of dimensions and add to that fact that they are constantly shifting and sliding over each other.  Now to open a transdimensional portal I need to hit one of those squares.

"So you're saying that if you don't know exactly what you are aiming at we could end up anywhere."  

"Bingo. Got it in one."

~Dr. Lawrence~

"How are you feeling this afternoon?"  I say, as I visually examine her.  She has some color in her cheeks now and her eyes are clear. I feel her forehead with the back of my hand and it's pleasantly cool.

"Much better thank you." She smiles at me.

"Are you ready to try some soup? Your cook has been keeping some hot for you all day just incase you felt like it." I leaned over to set the tray down on the table and feel the collar of my blouse slide down below the bite marks on my neck. The tray lands rather abruptly sloshing the soup over the edge of the bowl. 

"What's wrong with your neck?" 

"Nothing, it's just some bug bites."

"That's no bug bite! He bit you didn't he?" 

"No." I said as I readjust the collar of my blouse to hide the marks again. _Stupid, stupid!__ I can't believe I just let that happen._

"Maybe not him then, but some vampire did. You can't deign it." 

"I'm not going to." She seems stumped by my answer. _Good!_

"Why do you want to see your brother again so badly?" She looks like she'd been waiting for me to ask that question.                       

"When Father died, Mother locked herself away with the brandy decanter and didn't come out of her room for three months. William took care of me then. He was the one who braided my hair, saw to it that a governess was hired, and took me to the seamstress and helped me pick out fabrics for my clothes."

"I'm glad you had someone to take care of you. You must have missed William a lot when he died."

 "I did, I miss him so much. I miss the way we would sit parlor in every evening and talk. We talked about everything; from some new piece of poetry he had written to the latest scientific discoveries.  And he listened; he was the only person in this whole bloody house that ever listened to me."

I think she expects me to be shocked by her small curse._ She should hear her brother._

She falls quiet for a minute and then adds, "I want to see him, and if you don't help me I will go and look for him myself." 

I can tell by her earnestness that she means it. 

~Spike~

            "So why did Angelus and Darla head for Italy? I can't remember."  It feels pretty strange to be sitting here smoking a fag and making small talk with myself.

            "Darla got tired of the London, and wanted to get away from Dru for a while. Said Dru's prattle was driving her daft."

"Speaking of- what's she singing?" I watch as she twists the wax head off one of her dolls.

"London Bridge, though I think the verse really goes, take the key not catch the key."

_The Key!__ The key equals Dawn! _

I snatch Dru off the floor and turn her to face me. "You know where she is, and you're going to tell me." 

"Hey, hands off. No one gets to hurt Dru except me."

"I am you, you twit."

"Oh, right." 

"Wait! Hands off anyway. I've decided I don't like you, and I'm not going to be you when I grow up." 

I ignore him. Dru looks at me and licks her lips; she always did like it rough. "Dru, where's Dawn? Where's the Key?"

"The Watchers have it….but not for long," she laughs.

            "What's this key you're going on about?"

            "It's what I came back for."

            "I knew that clap about a spell going wrong was a bunch of rubbish. So what are you really after, some big treasure?"

            "Yeah, that's it. I need the key to get the treasure.  And if you help me get the key from the Watchers I'll split the take." 

            "Well, when you put it that way, I'll come; long as there's something in it for me."


	6. in the abyss

~Spike~

            This blasted headquarters is bespelled against vampires to the point that I need gloves just to climb over the fence. With the wardings they have up, I don't know if I could enter the building even with an invite, but I seem to have no problem moving around in the garden. I watch the windows of the building, looking for any trace of Dawn inside the illuminated panes. Hearing footsteps, I nudge Spike Jr. behind a bush, and we listen in on the toff's chit chat.  

            "I tell you, I cannot believe how easily the girl fell for his act; one would think he practices the black arts in order to track down vampires."

            "I have wondered about that myself, Rupert. Surely, his luck cannot hold much longer. He has the highest kill ratio of all our members, other than the Slayer herself." 

            "Croft is catching up with him though. That is why the girl is so important to him. He thinks she will lead him to a vampire nest tonight."

            "I did not think the council would agree to that, what with one of those monks coming."

            "You know my father; he did not bother to ask."

            "You mean he took her off council grounds without permission? But what if she is dangerous? The Order of Dagon is quite powerful."

            _Dagon! They've got to be talking about Dawn._

            "I have been exploring what information we have on them all afternoon, and found quite a few interesting prophecies relating to a future Slayer, who will avert an apocalypse through the use of some key. The scroll was difficult to translate though; it almost made it sound like a vampire would help her."

The man in brown laughs, "Rupert, I think you need to check your dictionary. That is just not plausible."

"Oh, don't you start. I tried to talk to my father about it before he left, but he just called me a bleedin' idiot and told me to go stuff my head back in a book." 

Their walk has taken them almost directly in front of where we are hiding "I'll take the one in gray, you get the one in the brown", I whisper to Junior. He springs from his crouch behind the bushes and lunges at the brown-coated man, taking him by surprise. The Watcher recovers quickly and pulls out a cross and a stake from his pockets. As Junior and the Watcher begin to circle each other, I grab the gray-coated Rupert and pull him into the bushes. "I hope your friend's a good fighter 'cause we need a few minutes to talk."

            I shake my game face away, but leave my hand over his mouth. "Bloody good work translating that prophecy, mate. Only one thing you missed. That girl that's with your old man…she's the key and I need to get her back to the future."

            I release his mouth so he can talk. I'm expecting something like, why would I help you, you're a vampire, but he surprises me. 

            "I know where they were going. Do you think you can stop your partner from killing my friend if I agree to come with you?"

            'My partner' has his fangs sunk into the Watcher's throat, but the man's heartbeat hasn't started to falter, so I guess I can make good on my part of the deal.

"Drop him! I've got the one I want." I can tell he's not listening to me. I rip the man from his arms and send him flying into the bushes. "I said drop him!" 

            "I wasn't finished." 

            "Bugger that, we need to go."

            "You're almost as bad as Angelus"

            _He was asking for that punch in the nose, he really was! _

~Dawn~

            It looks like a nice place to grow up. The street is wide and tree lined, the branches arch overhead to shake hands in the center. A boy and a girl are laughing and chasing a hula-hoop with a stick down the street. The late evening light lengthens their shadows into insubstantial giants. I try to imagine Spike playing like that, but all I can picture is him throwing rocks at windows.  I bet he was a cute kid though, probably spent his time charming treats out of his cook and avoiding his tutor.

 A couple in old fashioned clothes waves as we pass. Giles sides steps them and pulls me along by my elbow, leading me to a brown brick town home. So this is it, Spike's house. Now that we're here, I am in a quandary about what to do. Should I go up to the doors, knock, and say- Hi, I'm Dawn. You don't know me, but I'm trying to find William. Yes, ma'am, I know he's dead, but I still need to find him. I'm sure that will go over big. And how can I get rid of Giles? I'm beginning to get a bad feeling about him, he's been a tad too agreeable about me trying to find the family home of a vampire. I'll try the polite approach and if that doesn't work…well, running and hiding are always options. 

"Thank you for walking me here. It's okay to leave now though. I'll be fine waiting here on my own." 

            "Oh come now, I can't leave a young girl like yourself all alone in a strange neighborhood."

            "No really, I'll be fine. I'll just wait here."

            "What are you going to do if he doesn't show?"

            "There's one other place I can look." The look on his face, when I said that, is entirely too eager.  I'd rather try to make it back to Dru and the warehouse than trust the Watcher's council. But what if they aren't there? I start chewing on my fingernails. Even in this time, London is huge. How will I ever find any of them? The 'what ifs' circle my head like vultures. All this worrying is giving me a headache.

            A lamplighter leans his ladder against the streetlight as we wait. The gaslights flare, leaving us bathed in a pool of yellow light. He smiles a decaying, gap toothed greeting, as he moves on to the next pole. I can see the other lights beginning to come on in the neighboring houses, and shadows of people move behind the curtained windows. Spike's old house only has a couple of windows lit toward the back of the house. I wonder what his mother and sister are like. He never shared much about his human past; too many good stories about being the Big Bad I guess. 

Suddenly, from down the street, I see three men approaching. Spike's bleached blonde hair stands out in the dim light.  I break away from Giles and run to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, and burying my face in his chest. My eyes overflow with tears of happiness, and I start blubbering in relief.  

He sweeps me up in a bone-crushing hug. "Nibblet, it's all right, everything is going to be okay."

 "I knew you would lead me to them. Get out of the way girl, he's just another demon to be put down." Giles waves a small pocket sized crossbow threateningly.

"You mean he's just another tally mark down at the club," Rupert replies as he steps beneath the light of the street lamp. I am so surprised to see him that my jaw drops.

"Boy, what are you doing here in the company of these fiends?"

"If you ever read something other than war histories, you'd understand why I'm here. That prophecy I shared with you is about them." He gestures toward Spike and I. 

"You are a fool; the texts are full of false prophecies."

"No, it's you who are the fool. Only a fool would…. 

A shadow flies between them, knocking Rupert aside and pushing me to the ground. I go rolling across the grass, uncertain for a second as to what's happening.  I come to a stop as Dru twists my head around, baring my neck.

Drusilla growls at me, "No key, no future. Then my boy will have to come back to me."

I hear shouting over my head as black sparkles dance before my eyes.

"Where did she come from?"

"Don't know, must have followed us."

 I thrust my feet up and manage to break her hold a little. I drag in a ragged gasp of air, but I am no match for her. The searing pain makes the world go red as she sinks her fangs into my throat. Spike pulls her off me, and the three of us struggle. Dru clips me a good one and I fly back into a tree, disoriented for the moment. Spike lobs a sidekick at Drusilla, which knocks her off balance but gets caught in her skirt, and they end up grappling around in the grass.  I sink down against the trunk, trying to keep track of everything that's going on around me. The world has exploded into a morass of fists and fangs.

~Dr. Lawrence~

"Your brother is dead. He died. Even if you saw him again, he couldn't be what he was for you." I explain for the umpteenth time. 

"I know that! I just need to see him again, to prove to myself that what I saw was real." She clutches at the banister to keep her steps from wobbling as she descends the stairs.

"Paige, stop. You can't just go looking for him. It's dangerous out there and you're still not well." I whisper harshly as she continues to ignore me.

"Paige, if you don't stop this instant, I'm going to go get your mother." 

She holds onto the newel post, panting from the exertion. "Go ahead if you can wake her up. Of course, by now you will have to pry the decanter from her grasp."

I play my trump card. "William wouldn't like it if you put yourself in danger."  That seems to stop her for a moment, but then a look of resolve comes over her face and she staggers toward the foyer. 

Shouts and curses draw us both to the windows. A battle is taking place on the lawn. I recognize the three vampires and Dawn, but I'm not sure who the other two combatants are. I feel a rush of relief as I catch sight of Dawn leaning against the tree. _Home, home, home, it's time to go home, my heart sings.  __I hadn't realized just how scared I was that I'd never get back there until I saw her._

Paige too, has identified the fighters. "That's my brother. That's William. Let me go. I have to go to him."

I grab a hold of her shoulders and turn her to face me. "Paige, I'm going to level with you. Those are vampires out there, they are real, and they're dangerous. He may not kill you, but he has friends out there for whom you will be nothing more than a meal."

Paige pulls away from me and opens the front door. Her arm slips through my grasp as I try to detain her. She plunges into the fight, throwing herself between the brown haired vampire and an older man as they struggle for control of a crossbow.  The vampire's eyes widen in shock and he loses his concentration. I wince in sympathy as her distraction prevents him from blocking a vicious blow to his chest that knocks him to the ground. The man brings the crossbow up and aims it at his opponent.

Paige screams and throws her body at him. "You shall not hurt my brother."  She knocks the bow up and away. The man's powerful backhand drops her to the ground like a discarded doll, enraging his opponent. As the fighting intensifies I zig zag, commando style, to get to her side. 

 "Come on Paige, wake up, we have to get out of here." I slap her cheeks lightly.

            A young and hopefully human stranger sweeps her up in his arms, pulling her away from me, saying, "We have to get her into the house. They can not follow you there." 

I don't think he realizes that it's not only vampires that I am afraid of. I scan the struggle, searching for Dawn. My heart constricts in my chest as I take in the amount of blood covering the front of her blouse. I make my way to her, ripping my petticoat for bandages as I go. She smiles at me gratefully as I press the wad of fabric against her neck.  _I feel so shallow, it's not so much for her anymore as what she represents… she's my ticket home._

Dru and William continue to fight. I can tell he's holding back, pulling his punches. His moves seem defensive, rather than offensive, and she keeps herding him back toward the house. William stumbles into his…twin? And the groups merge into one. The darkness hides the action, and all Dawn and I can do is wait to see who the victors are. 

Shouts and curses fill the air as the factions explode apart. Two bodies drop to the ground as the constraining pressure of the group is removed.  Dawn screams in my ear and throws herself away from the tree as she identifies William. The older man lies on the ground, dead or unconscious and guarded by the younger, who points a crossbow at the remaining vamps. I edge in beside Dawn to take a look at William. It's not good. The shaft of the arrow is lodged low in the right side of his chest. 

 "We need to pull the arrow out, but when we do, I'm afraid your lung is going to collapse."  _I'd give my eyeteeth for a thoracotomy tray._

He sits up with a groan and yanks the arrow out. "Don't worry, I don't use them to breathe with anyway."

I hear the old man groan, and turn to look, catching a glimpse of Dawn out of the corner of my eye. She's as pale as one of the vampires, and her expression chills me to the core. 

"It didn't work." She whispers so softly that I have to strain to catch the words. "When I touched you both it didn't work. I thought we'd just go back. But we didn't." 

~Buffy~

The toes of Buffy's boots had just cleared the gaping black maw of the portal, when it slammed shut and blinked out of existence.

"Will, what happened? What went wrong?" yelled Xander.

"I don't know! The portal closed too fast, and I couldn't stop it. It felt like someone grabbed the power out of my hands."

"Damn it, Willow! Open it again. We've got to get her back."

"I know!  Deja el luminoso abra marcar." 

"Will, nothing's happening."

"Be quiet and let me concentrate. Deja el luminoso abra marcar."

~Dr. Lawrence~

The wet rag slides down across my face and tumbles into my lap, as I sit up with groan. My eyes come into focus on William's face and then dart around the room in confusion. We're back in the warehouse again, and I am lying on the sofa across from the unfinished portrait. _How did I get here?_

"Oh good, you're awake. I was beginning to wonder if you'd bumped your noggin during all the fighting." 

"No, I think it was the shock of finding out we weren't going back." My hand trembles as I rub the wet rag across my eyes and mouth. I'm embarrassed by this sign of weakness and clench them tightly in my lap. _I feel like I've aged ten years in_ … "What time is it?" 

"Late afternoon," he shrugs. "You've been out for a while."

"You didn't try to wake me?" In my mind that had sounded like an accusation, but it came out with a sigh of relief.

"Figured you needed it."

"Where are Dru and…." I look around warily, half expecting her to be lurking in some corner contemplating making me her next meal.

            "Junior?" He supplies. "Gone, they took off after the fight."

            "Do you think they will be back?"

            "Doubt it. Probably caught a ship to Italy, catch up with Darla and Angelus. That's what I would do, anyway."

            "Don't you know?" I ask as I watch him rub his hands across his eyes, and for the first time I notice how drawn and brittle he looks.

            "We've changed the timeline; we won't know what the effect will be until we get back."

            I ponder that for a moment and then ask, "What happened after I went down for the count?"

            "The Watchers called it a draw and took themselves off. Dawn and I took Paige and tucked her in bed, and then we carted you back here."

 "You need to do something about Paige. Putting her back to bed like you did is not going to cut it. She won't believe it's a dream and she's not likely to forget this time, even with the bump on the head she took.  Are you listening to me? She's determined to find you."

"You're right. I'm going to write her a letter."

"I don't think a letter is the best way to go with this. You really should talk to her," I protest. 

"Look, you're not my doctor and I don't need a bloody nanny telling me what to do."

"Alright, that's fair. I'm not your doctor, but we agreed to be friends. And as a friend I'm going to tell you that I think you'll regret this." 

The two of us glared at each other in a silent contest of wills. Finally I looked away. "Where's Dawn?" 

"Next door, why don't you go check on her?

I resisted the urge to scream at him and settled on slamming the door as I exited into the hall. I had to stand there a moment and pull myself back together. I hadn't been so mad since my ex had shown up at the national medical conference with that bimbo on his arm. I took a few deep breaths and then quietly opened the second door. I paused a moment and watched my client. Dawn stood with her back to me, pacing the three foot stretch back and forth in front of the easel. Her arms were clasped tightly around her body as if she were cold.   I wished that I could think of something, anything that would help her get through this additional grief. 

 "Doctor Lawrence!" She jumped as she caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye. "You startled me, but I am glad to see you up and around. How are you?"

_So you want to pretend everything is normal? Not this time, my girl! This time we are going to get down to business. _I shook my head over her obvious denial.

 "Well, I'm over the gibbering in terror part, if that's what you mean. I think my mind has put itself suspended disbelief mood. There is some logic in there some place – since everything is unbelievable then there is nothing that can not be believed.

 I'm depending on you to get us back, you know.  

            She looked startled and I couldn't help but wondered if anyone had ever allowed themselves to need Dawn. And if they had… had they told her?"

"Dawn, can I ask you a question?"

            "Sure." 

            "Is any of this real?"

            "Of course it is real. I have the cuts and bruises to prove it."  

             "How do you know you aren't just dreaming this? That you aren't just lying in your bed in the psychiatric ward lost in some psychotic nightmare?"

            She reacts in anger to my question, and screams at me, "I am not crazy! You're here. You're experiencing this too." 

She's really ticked; I think I must have pushed a button. Good.

 I smile at her calmly. "You're right. And you did exactly what we all do when we encounter something unbelievable. You looked to another person to confirm your version of reality. Reality is a shared event. It's a like language in that way." She looks baffled.

 "I'll give you an example. Let's say I make up a set of syllables- jitek and I decide it means to be very happy. I could go around saying I'm so jitek all day long and people would just think I'm crazy, but the minute I share the meaning of those syllables with one other person it goes from becoming a set of meaningless letters to being a meaningful word."

            Her mouth shapes itself into a small o of surprise. 

"So are your memories of your past shared by your friends and family?"

            She nods her head a bit uncertainly. "But, the monks made the memories. That's what they told Buffy."

            "Did they make the memories, or was it possible that they changed time? Just like we are doing right now?"

            "I never thought about it. I guess it's possible. I just wish there were someone I could ask. To do what you said- confirm my view of what's real."

            "Sometimes life doesn't offer us those opportunities. I'm afraid you may have to decide what's real on your own. I have a couple more things to share and then I'll leave you to your painting. Have you ever read a children's story called 'The Little Prince,' by Saint Exupery?"

            "It sounds familiar. I think Mom may have read it to me when I was little. It's the one about a boy that travels to different planets trying to learn how to understand others?"

            "Yes, that's the one. Do you happen to remember what the fox says to him at the end when he shares his secret?" 

She shakes her head no. 

"It's one of my favorite lines. _It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye._

            "I've got something else for you to think about too. A great man named Buckminster Fuller once questioned his existence too. He came up with something like this- When he was born he weighed 6 pounds, and as he aged, his weight continued to double and triple, until he weighed over 170 pounds in his fifties, then as he grew older he began to lose weight, until he was little more then a hundred pounds. Can you guess what he concluded?  I've memorized this bit, so this is a direct quote. "Who was that 70 pounds? - Because here I am. We have been making a grave error in identifying the me that is me and you that is you with these purely transitory bodies. Whatever life is, it weighs nothing."

            I think I rendered her speechless! On that note I left, it was now time to beard the other lion in its den. I hope I could do as well with him.

William looked up from the table as I entered the room. "If you are over your snit I have the letter for you to deliver." 

"You need to talk to her; a letter is not going to end this obsession."

"I don't need your advice. If I want to hear what you think, I will check myself in to that loony bin you work at. I am not crazy and I don't need any help making decisions. I have been making my own for almost 200 years, and I am still around; so I must be doing ok.  I need only two things from you. First off, I want you to go to this address, and ask for Rupert Giles. Tell him, I want this spell performed at my old house. He'll understand why. Then I want you to go with him and give Paige the letter I'll write."

I am so mad at him I can feel my jaws aching. Here he has the chance to make peace with his past and he's not taking it. Being a psychiatrist is so frustrating at times like this. I grabbed the envelope from his fingers and slammed out the door. The sunshine outside blinds me with it radiance. My world seemed to revolve around a twilight world of grays and darkness these last few days. I squint and stamp angrily toward the end of the street. And then took another look at the directions William had written on the outside of the first envelope. 

I begin to walk, first rapidly in anger, and then more slowly as I lost its edge. The hollow ring of my feet adds a counterpoint to the self-accusations that run threw my head. I keep turning my last conversation with William over and over again in my mind. Playing around with my wording and wondering if I could have changed his mind if only I had said it better or more wisely. Finally I stop to consult his directions. My feet are killing me. I don't think I have ever walked so far in my life. It really lets me know just how dependent I am on cars. I remember reading something about handsome cabs in this day and age, but I am baffled about how to go about finding one. I mean really…what makes it handsome? Besides which I have no money anyway. I wonder if I can get Paige's mother to pay me when I go there. I feel so helpless without any cash.  

            I ask for directions for yet a third time before I finally arrive. The buildings appearance with its iron gates and forbidding fortress-like structure make me hesitate at the walk's entrance. I give a couple of furtive glances around the grounds before proceeding up the stone path. I am not sure what I am expecting, except that something feels… wrong. I stop and compose myself in the doorway; before giving the knocker a sharp rap.

            _My god, it's Sherlock Holmes. I cleared my throat with a hrumph to keep from laughing, and then remembered what I was there for. "I have a message for Rupert Giles", I said as I took the envelope from where I had tucked it in the waist band of my skirt._

The man watched the extraction with a bit of a sneer. "Rupert is unavailable right now, but you can leave the message with me, I'll make sure he will receive it when he returns." 

"I am afraid that I can't do that. The message is of a personal nature"

"Madam, are you suggesting that I would stoop to reading my son's private correspondence?"

"No, I apologize. I didn't mean…_His son! I hadn't recognized him in the day light! But he had obviously recognized me. I made a calculated attempt to extract myself from the situation_.  _"I am sure you would never disabuse your son's trust", I soothed._

He made a swipe at the letter, and I pulled back; hastily stuffing it into the front of my bodice. "Thank you for your assistance. I will try back later." 

Backing away I hurried down the walk and back out onto the street; resisting the urge to look over my shoulder. I paused at the corner and listened without turning. A fleeting slip-slap of foot steps echoed behind me and then stopped. I started walking again, glancing into the windows on my right trying to catch a glimpse of the person behind me. Catching sight of the Sherlock Holmes clone in the reflection I started looking around for an escape route. Mixing into a crowd of shoppers, I let myself be sweep along by the flow and down a steep set of stairs. Water dripped from the walls and it smelled like I was descending into one of the vestibules of hell. Where in the world were all these people going? 

I took risk and looked over my shoulder. He was still back there.  A large group of people swarmed between us as I reached the bottom of the steps. I took the chance to dodge behind a column. The underground chamber echoed with voices. Every few minutes a single voice would project itself above the garble announcing something unintelligible. Making my way along the edge of the walls, I worked my way to the front of the platform, and stared in amazement. A steam train here in the tunnel! My eyes widened in surprise; this must be the famous London underground. My god, the US couldn't have had more then a hand full of passenger trains during this time. I'd had no idea they were so advanced. The ornate map posted on the wall failed to reveal any recognizable locations but St. Jame's park was listed and I knew I had passed that on my walk from the warehouse. That would at least take me back that far since Paige's house was in the opposite direction from the Watcher's Council. 

Gile's Senior appeared on my right and made a grab for my arm. "I've got you now, you trollop. You shall not return to your dark master!"

 I grabbed his arm in and pulled forward, throwing him off balance, and then kicked him in the nuts. He went down clutching his privates with a groan. I guess women in this era aren't taught that one because he surely hadn't been expecting it. Kneeling down next too him I slipped his wallet out of his pocket. "Help! He's having a seizure" He clutched at my ankle as I backed away from the gathering crowd and headed toward the ticket booth. _Yipee_! Public transportation to save my aching tooties!_ _

The outside of Paige's house showed no sign of the battle that had taken place the night before. I continued around to the rear servant's entrance. No need to break my cover yet. I was surprised not to find the housekeeper in the kitchen, but whispers of conversation led me back to a part of the house I had not entered before. Following the sound I entered a room that was airy and perfumed with flowering plants that grew in brilliant sunshine. The large ferns obscured my view of the conversationalists. Making my way down the narrow path I continued toward the voices. I recognized Paige's, but identity of the second voice… I rounded the corner and came face to face with Gile's the younger. The look on their faces surprised me as much as I surprised them. Surely, that winsome look couldn't be for real! They had only known each other for a few hours at most! Rupert dropped her hand and turned beet red.

Mm…ah… Doctor Lawrence.  I was not… I mean- do you have word from my brother?

"Yes, he sent you a letter." I say as I hand it to her. "He sent you one too, Mr. Giles. I tried to deliver it to the Watcher's Council Headquarters, but as you weren't there…Well lets just say, your father was very helpful, and please return this to him with my thanks." I met his puzzled look with a smile as I handed him the wallet along with the letter. I turned my attention back to Paige. Her face paled as she perused the letter's contents. Her hands began to tremble and then shake. The dropped from her nerveless fingers and floating gently away from her. I raised my eyebrows at her, in a silent question, and she gave me her permission with a distracted nod. 

_Paige-_

_Yes, what you saw was real. I did claw my way out of my grave and I killed and fed on the watchman. That's how things are for me. I feed on people and I kill them. That's how I survive. _

_I remember being your brother, but I'm not him. You need to get on with your life and let me go; 'cause if you try to find me you'll end up dead, and I don't want to be responsible for that.     _

_William_

_PS. I've asked Rupert Giles to uninvite me from the house. This important, you will keep mother and yourself out of his way and let him work his magics._

I crumpled the letter and threw it on the floor. I was so angry at William. Why did he have to leave things hanging that way? That letter was like offering a starving creature a meal and then switching it with a cracker at the last minute. I searched my store of comforting phases. I wanted to say something that would ease the abandonment and heartache that I was sure she was going through. I was still thinking, when she sat forward on her chair and spoke to Mr. Giles. Her eyes seemed to burn with the intensity of the emotions she was experiencing.

"I want to know everything there is to know about vampires, and you will teach me", demanded Paige. 

An undercurrent of emotion ran between them. I couldn't put my finger on it but I knew it was there.

"And what would you do with that knowledge?" He asked.

            "Train Slayers of course. You said that was your job, didn't you?"

            "I don't understand what you think you could possibly add. The council has been training Slayers for years".

            "And would the council accept the possibility of a vampire, like William; a vampire who has chosen not to kill." What would I train a slayer to do? Why to see with her heart."

            Mr. Giles made no reply to her last statement, but turned to me "I will need to return to the Watcher's Council to get the supplies I will need for the spell. Will you remain here until I return?"

            I nodded yes, as he strode from the room. Paige and I sat in silence for a moment. Then giving a sigh, she rang a small bell that had rested unnoticed on a small wicker table near her arm causing the housekeeper to appear. "Mrs. Norris, would you please bring us some tea?

            The tea came with some little sandwiches on a beautiful wooden tea cart. I was starving at this point and could have eaten the lot in one setting, but I made nice and tried to control my hunger. Lord knows when I would ever get the chance to experience a real English tea again. As she poured, I picked up the letter that had been left lying on the floor and smoothed it with my palm. "I don't think he meant it to be so abrupt, he doesn't seem to be able to convey his emotions in writing too well." I offered her the letter. She stroked it with her finger tips, and then folded it gently and tucked it into a pocket.  She waited until I finished my tea before she spoke.

"I need to see him, and you will take me there, or I will go alone."

I met her eyes squarely and nodded. I might not be able to bring the mountain to Mohammad, but by god, I could bring William's sister to him. 

~Spike~

"Your doctor needs to keep her arse out of my business. Who does she think she is? She has no right to tell me how to treat my sister." I shook my fist at the door Doc had just exited.

"I haven't really met Paige, but I think Dr. Lawrence has a point.  Why don't you want to talk to her?" Asked Dawn as she entered from the hall. 

"It's complicated, bit. Never wanted anything more to do with them, even Paige. She's safer if I'm not around." I give a dizzy groan and flop down on the couch. 

Dawn kneels between my legs and pushes up my shirt. 

"Quit that" I growl as she pokes her finger near the spot where the arrow entered.

"It's not healing is it? Spike, when was the last time you fed?"

"None of your business."

"You haven't fed since we got here, have you? Well, I can take care of that right now. Where's the nearest butcher? I'll just go and pick some up."

"Won't work, bit, butchers in this time period don't keep blood unless they are making sausage or pudding. No refrigeration, remember. Don't worry. I set out some rat traps, they'll catch something soon, I'm sure."

"Rats!" She exclaims with a strangled gurgle. 

"They aren't bad. Tastes just like pigeon." _Yeah, and who wants to sink their teeth in one of those feathered cockroaches, ughhh! _

"You could feed on me."

            I consider her offer. The thought has its appeal; at least it would be better then bloody rats. "You're a stupid fool for offering, you know. Letting vampires feed on you is asking to be killed."

"I'm not letting any vampire feed on me, I'm offering to let you feed on me. There's a difference and you know it. Besides you've fed on Buffy."

"Have not"

"Oh come on Spike get real. Did you think I wouldn't know the difference between a hickey and a bite mark? I don't care how much makeup Buffy slathers on, it still had puncture marks."

"Ok have. But that's between me and Buffy and it's none of your business." I pull her up from where she is kneeling. Stupid chit doesn't have a clue at what she's offering me. Nibblet, platelet, doesn't she think those names mean anything? What they are, are ways to describe food; sick jokes that became endearments over time. She smells like food to me. Her smell is like Buffy's …ambrosia, a gift from the gods. I hold her, like a child, her head is cradled against my chest, and bury my nose in her hair, sniffing the sweet, human scent of her body. Another scent trickles into my consciousness… Drusilla. I push her off my lap and drop her on the couch beside me. "Sorry, luv, can't. You've been made enough of a pin cushion already."

"You won't feed because Drusilla bit me? How lame is that? She only got a couple tablespoons full before you pulled her off."

"You wouldn't understand. It's a sire thing. She marked you as hers. The smell warns other vampires off, even me."

"Ugh!"

"Don't worry it will fade by the time the bite heals up. You'll be back to being vampire bait in no time." Stupid stomach chose that moment to growl loud enough for us both to hear.

"I don't understand what the big deal is. You and Dru have shared people before, I saw it."

"Saw me kill, did you? Never wanted you to see that, pet. What's done is done though that's who I am."

"Who you were, maybe, but not who you are."

"Sometimes I think you are still the only one that really believes that, nibblet."

I kiss the cup of her palm and allow my lips follow the trace of her pulse as it runs beneath her flesh. Her skin feels like a warm, ripe peach. I move onward past the stitches in wrist. She tugs her arm away from me. 

"Stop wiggling, I'm looking for a vein." Her body jerks backward as I sink my fangs into her forearm just below the elbow. I put my arm around her waist to steady her and she crawls back into my lap. Her blood tastes like clover and honey. It has its own shade of power, different from the Slayer's. Buffy's blood makes me feel like I have a fire burning deep in my chest. Dawn's is like drinking from a deep well; her power is green, and black, and endless. 

Her hand drifts across the ridges of my face as I feed from her. I catch the slip of paper as it drops from her nerveless fingers and floats gently away from her. I raise my eyebrows at her, in a silent question. She gives her permission with a distracted nod. 

~Dawn~

His lips are like fire on my forearm. I can feel my pulse all the way from my fingertips to the very soles of my feet as the blood works its way toward his mouth. The pressure is divine, like the moment before orgasm, everything building. I want him so much. I lean down and loosen the button on his jeans with my free hand. He is full and hard in my hand.

His groan is muffled by my flesh as he presses his fangs deeper into my forearm. He breaks away, kissing me as I straddle him. I kiss his neck and chest, he leans back against the couch and I begin to ride him. 

Our tongues play and dance as we kiss deeply, passionately. And I can taste my own blood: hot, metallic, and sweet.  All these years I have wanted him, even before Buffy.  In this moment he's mine. My heart sings with it; mine, mine, mine. With his eyes closed he caresses my neck beneath by hair, and nuzzles my breast.

            "Buffy" 

He said her name. He said _her name.  I pull away from him in anger and shock. The look of horror on his face cuts me to the core. _

"Bit?"

I move away, readjusting my skirt as I go. I want to run, somewhere, anywhere, than face the accusation in his eyes. "Don't even say it. It was wrong. I know it was wrong. You are Buffy's. You will always be Buffy's." I screech in anger. "God damn bitch has always had everything I wanted: she was the real daughter, she has super powers, and she has you."

"She didn't ask for those things."

"You would defend her. Of course she didn't ask for those things; they were handed to her on a silver platter. Just like you. She didn't even like you when she first met you. Not the way I did."

"Bit. Nibblet, it just happened. No need to make more of it than it was. Uhmm, you're not going to tell Buffy are you?"

I scream in rage. If I had a stake right now he'd be toast! "YOU GOD FORESAKEN BASTARD! You want to go back to Buffy, fine. I'll send you there as soon as I get the picture finished." 

"Dawnie, you aren't going to hurt yourself over this are you?"

I slam the door between us and stalk down the hall. 

            The painting of our living room comes fast and furious. I don't even care if it is accurate at this point. If we don't get back it doesn't make much difference to me. 

I wonder if I painted a picture of hell, if I could send him there. 

As the slick tan of the couch and the golden brown of Xander's weapons chest form on the canvas. I'm calmer now. Painting is having it usual effect. 

~Dr. Lawrence~

"I can not go any farther. I have to rest." Paige collapsed on the steps of building, pale and sweaty. 

"You can make it. Come on, Paige, we need to get there before it gets dark." I haul her up and wrap her arm around my shoulders. We stagger on together for a few more blocks, before her knees give out and she sags to the ground; almost pulling me down with her. 

            "Ok, we rest." I said, giving in. "But we can't rest long. It's already growing dark, and this area is not real safe." I wonder if I can get her to the warehouse by myself, or if I'll need to leave her so that I can go get William. Neither is my preferred choice. I sit down on the step next to her to do some thinking. 

            "He won't be happy to see me will he?" She asks.

            "I think he will be happy to see you, once he gets over the shock of it." I reply.

            "Do you think he still cares for me? All this time and he never once contacted me."  
             "I can't answer for your brother. You can ask him when you see him."

            "Ask me what?" A form emerges from the shadows, causing us both to jump. I start to fuss at him for scaring us, but the words die in on my lips. His pale skin takes on a feral look in the low light. He looks at us hungrily; his golden eyes seem to weigh us like a butcher eyeing a choice piece of meat. 

            "Well, well, my lovely little sister, I bet mother does not know you are running around in this part of town. It could ruin all her plans to marry you off if anyone ever found out you were here."

            "William?" She appears to hesitate at the sight of the vampire's true face, but extends her hand beseechingly. "William, why did you never return to me? I missed you so much." 

I can't make up my mind if I should stop her. This isn't William, or at least not the William I know, but it is her brother.

            The vampire sneers, "Return, to what: Mother drinking herself into a coma, women saying I'm beneath them; you showing all my poetry to your girlfriends. Had yourself a good laugh, I wager. No thanks. Stupid little bints in pigtails laughing about what a prat I was, and you were the worst of the lot."

            "I was proud of your work." She said in her defense. "You are only doing this to hurt me, to keep me away from you. Just like you said in your letter."

            "What letter?" He looks at me, finally acknowledging my presence.

 "Your future self….."

            A look of rage comes over his face. "I'm not him. I will never be him."

            As he turns to leave Paige's hand shoots out, capturing his arm. "Do not leave me again. Please, I beg of you. I love you."

            "Grow up, Paige. What you loved does not exist anymore. You are food to me, nothing more."

            "We could make her more." 

I swing around scanning the darkness wildly for the location of that voice. My hand involuntarily covers the wound Drusilla had left a day earlier.  The shadowy form inserts herself between Paige and her brother, and grabs Paige by the chin. 

"I always wanted a little girl to dress up in ribbons and bows. I could be your new mummy." 

            Paige squeaks and hugs the wall in terror. I try to set myself between them, but Drusilla throws me aside. I fall across the stair railing with a thud. The world goes hazy dark with pain, and I'm pretty sure I've broken a rib. I lay there unable to catch my breath, and watch as the fangs descend on Paige's neck. I look helplessly at her brother, expecting him to do something to stop this heinous act, but he does nothing; his face an impassive block of stone.  I extend my arm and grasp him by a booted ankle. "Help her," I whisper. 

            "She'll be better off turned. You on the other hand, you'll make a nice snack for her first kill. Can't promise you a painless death though, fledglings don't know how to puncture at first. They just tear the whole throat out. Hmmn, maybe I should just go ahead and eat you." 

            "Back demon." From out of nowhere, water splashes across my face and neck. The vampire drops me back on to the steps with a shout. 

            "Hey, watch it. That stuff burns."

            "Tell her to unhand the girl, or she will suffer the same fate." The watcher brandished his cross and pulled out a second bottle of holy water from his pocket.

            "What's it to you, mate? She's my sister." He shakes his hands smoke rising from the burned flesh.

            "She is to become an innate of the council. That makes her my business." He splashed the liquid from the unstoppered flask in direction of two who were still locked in their gruesome embrace. The vampire shrieked and dropped Paige on the ground next to me.

            "Dru, baby, are you all right?" 

The vampiress's lips were already blistering from the onslaught of holy water, and her eyes were wild. "You will pay for that", she cried and lunged.

The cross and flask flew from his hands as the two rolled out into the street. He struggled to keep her away from his throat; bringing his elbow up under her chin and forcing her away with his other hand. They grappled violently for a few minutes, but I could see that it was a losing battle. I brought my self to my knees with a groan not knowing what I was going to do, just knowing that I had to do something. My hand came to rest on the flask of holy water. Although it had spilled when he dropped it there was still some inside. I flung the remaining liquid right into Drusilla's eyes. She screamed and the two      of them broke apart.

William turned toward me, and I saw my death in his eyes. Reaching behind me I grabbed the cross and held it before me. 

"You'll pay for this, Bitch." Swooping down, he clutches his injured mate to his chest and disappears into the night.

I start to sigh, but the breath catches in my chest and I groan. Clutching my injured ribs I struggled over to where Paige was laying. 

            "Is she alive?" Giles asks.

"Yes." I take a quick assessment of Paige's vitals. Breathing seems to be ok, and pulse is good. "I think she just fainted from the shock. By the way, thanks for the rescue; that was good timing." 

 "When you were not at the house when I returned, I grew concerned."

            "But how did you find us?" I ask as he carefully helps me rise.

            "I used a spell of contagion." He holds up a lace handkerchief that I recognized as one of Paige's. 

            _More magic!  I lived 44 years without hint of magic, and in one weekend my life's perceptions of the world are thrown out the window.  God, I need a drink._

            "You were heading somewhere. Will it be closer to take her there than to return to her house?"

I nod and turn to lead the way as he gently picks up Paige, cradling her in his arms. 

~Dr. Lawrence~

            I hear the door open behind me, and growl, "What do you want," without turning around.

            "Nothing, William just asked me to check on you. He seemed to think you might want to talk. We are going back aren't we? It's not about that is it? 'Cause if it is, I really can't deal with it right now without a drink."

            "What happened to you?" This was not the neatly dressed professional I first met. She looked like she had been in a brawl.

            "I think I broke some ribs. Paige and I were attacked by Drusilla and William's younger self."

            "Is Paige ok?"

            "I think so, but she's unconscious. William is watching over her."

"So what happened while I was gone?"

"I don't want to talk about it." 

"Most of the time when you don't want to talk, that's the very time you need to talk the most."

"Save your platitudes."

"Oh come on, take my mind off the pain in my ribs."

"I sleep with my sister's boyfriend. Ok."

"You slept with William? My, you do know how to complicate your life. So how do you feel about it?"

I start to lie, but the minute I open my mouth the whole filthy story starts pouring out. She's so calm about it. If she's disgusted it doesn't show on her face.

"And how are you feeling?" She gently prompts again. 

"Guilty, angry…I don't know."

"Guilt a big one. So do you feel guilty about having sex with you sister's boyfriend, or do you feel guilty about taking advantage of him." 

"Both I guess. I just wanted him to be mine for a little while. I've loved him for along time. I'm afraid of what's going to happen when we get back."  

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm worried about what Spike will tell Buffy." 

"So you're afraid of your sister?"

"No, I hope that when she finds out that she pounds him into mush."

 "Oh, so you're worried about what Spike will tell Buffy. I think you'll have to work that with him. I suggest you do it before you go back."

"I don't want to talk to him again, ever! He said _her _name."

"Dawn, I think you are angry that it didn't mean as much to him as it did to you. Honey, we all go through that one at sometime or another. Think of it as a one night stand that didn't turn out too well. And as to wanting Buff to take your side, well I think you're right. Your sister will probably choose you over Spike so you'll be assured of her loyalty – did you doubt it before? From what I've heard she gave her life for you. You're talking about wrecking the lives of the two people who, from what you've said; mean the most to you in the world. You've got to decide whether you are going to take your emotions out on your sister. You've been rebelling against her for a long time and it would be very easy to lash out at her, because that's the pattern you've fallen into. But I want you to stop and think about what would be the consequences of you telling her."

"So you think I should lie? Not tell Buffy anything about what happened?"

"I'm not asking you to lie. What I am saying to you need to be very careful of your motives for wanting to tell your sister. It's not enough just to want to get it off your chest. You are an adult, now, and need to be responsible for the consequences of your actions." 

She's right but I don't want to listen to her. I begin to fill in the shadows from the window. I hope he fries! _Buffy will probably hate Spike, she'll definitely kick him out and she might even kill him._ A small part of me cheers at the thought, but another voice begins to play the devil's advocate. _That wouldn't solve anything, it whispers, _you still wouldn't get him for a boyfriend_. _

I can't go back. I can't face them. They will blame me for it all anyway, just like they always do. "You don't have to worry about me wrecking anyone else's lives. I've decided I'm not going back. I'm going to find the monks that made me, and force them to give me some answers."

~Spike~

"You can put the bloody cross away I'm not going to eat her, or you either for that matter."

"I think not. We were just attacked by your predecessor."

"Well, I'm not him and he swears he'll never be me. So you don't need it." I lunge forward and grab the cross from his hands. The burning sears through my palms as I bust it up and throw it against the wall. "There, now that I've taken care of that little irritation, why the fuck did you bring her here?"

"I didn't bring her, so much as rescue her. I believe she was hunting you when she ran into him. She's going to get herself killed," he continued.

The two of us sit and stare at her for a moment. "What the hell am I going to do about her? I don't want to talk to her. I thought it would just make it worse. Now I don't have a choice. She'd like things to go back to the way it was, but that's never going to happen.  You're right if she keeps trying she's going to get herself killed." 

The watcher watches me as I watch Paige. This one doesn't look much like Giles; hair is darker, and he has a bit more weight on him too. The pup has been staring at me for the last 45 minutes ever since he put Paige down on the couch. I tried to encourage him to leave but he said he couldn't leave her here. He's looking all protective and googly-eyed at my sister. Wonder what's up with that. The twit's falling for her. That would be a fine thing- brother-in-law to a Watcher, but then he'd be brother-in-law to a vampire. Bet that would go over big with the council. And if he thinks that damn cross in his lap would have stopped me if I wanted to have a sup, then he has another thing coming.             

"I've never been in the same room with a vampire before. Well, when they haven't been trying to kill me. It is kind of disappointing really. You act so normal."

            "It's a good disguise. Puts people off guard." I imagine grabbing his tie and strangling him with it. It he keeps staring at me like that for much longer I'll do it. I twiddle my thumbs, rolling them over and over. I wonder what is going on with Doc and Dawn in the next room.

            Dawn should never have done that too me. Always known she had a crush on me, but she…we had always been careful to keep it with in bounds. God damn it all to hell, she going to tell Buffy, I just know she will! I know the consequences of that little act will cost too much. Would have slept with her long before this if I thought I could have gotten away with it. Buffy's going to have my hide for this one. I might as well walk into the sun and get it over with. 

            The door to the room slams open, crashing into the wall with a thud. I leap to my feet; my body automatically launching itself into fighting mode. The Watcher too, lurches to his feet as we turn and face the oncoming opponent. I feel my body relax as I identify the familiar presence and then re-tense as I examine Dawn's enraged face.

            "The picture's done. I'm ready to send you back now." She spits the words out.

            Doc files in behind Dawn; her face as pendulant as a two year old's. Whatever was said between the two of them doesn't seem to have improved Dawn's mood.

            "She says she's not going back," Doc announced. 

 "What do you mean you aren't going back? You are coming back to Sunnydale with us if I have to tie you up and throw your through that painting myself", I replied. I can feel the vain in my temple begin to throb.

            "I'm not! I'm going to go to the Order of Dagon and find out, once and for all, what I am and why I was made! Besides, I wouldn't think you'd want me back there with Buffy. I might spill the beans that we slept together."

            I slammed my fist into my other hand, "We didn't sleep together, we screwed. It didn't mean anything. Doc, help me out on this."

            Doc gave me a dirty look. "Don't you know better then to tell a woman that it didn't mean anything. It always means _something!" _

            "And you!" She turned toward Dawn. "You're running away from the consequences of your own actions again, and you need to _stop_! Face up to your choices and deal with it! It's time you grew up!"

            Paige chose that moment to wake up. She sat up with a cry and huddled into the back of the couch. "Where… where am I?"

Giles rushed forward and pulled her into his embrace. "Do not be concerned, beloved. I am here. I will protect you." 

            Doc and I echo each other. "_BELOVED_!"

            "Yes, she is my beloved, and I intend to marry her; if she will have me! His defiance withers under our stares, but he continues to hold Paige and stroke her hair.

            "Are you out of your cotton pick'en mind? You've known this girl all of two days, and for a good part of that she's been unconscious." Doc sinks down in a chair and places her hands over her eyes. "All I want to do is go home, where I handle patients with psychosis one at a time. This mass insanity is just too much for me!" 

            Her words surprise a chuckle from me. Dawn looks at me with a smirk and begins to giggle. Doc eyes at both of us with distain, but then a grin slowly spreads across her face. I give a big whooping laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Dawn and Doc join in. Paige looks bewildered but happy and gives a tentative giggle herself. Watcher looks at the four of us like we have all fallen under some type of spell, but the laughter is becoming contagious, and even reluctantly he joins in. Dawn and I cling together, the two of us laughing so hard that we are almost bent double. The sound builds in waves. I try to stop but a glance at the others making such fools of themselves sets me off again. 

Slowly, however, the laughter tapers off, and I am left sucking air to catch the breath that I don't need. Dawn and I stare at each other. I don't know what she was thinking of, but I was remembering the night that I helped her break into the Magic Box. Remembering the look on her face as I read the monks words. I didn't have a soul then so I didn't feel bad for the brat of a kid she had been, she'd just been a convenient way to get to Buffy, but now…now I could understand why she wanted to know her purpose in life. 

"Spike, I'm so sorry for all of this. Please understand", Dawn pleaded. "I didn't mean for any…ANY… of it to happen. I never meant to hurt you or Buffy, and I won't. I won't ever tell her anything.  But, Spike, I am so close now! They are here in this city, and all I have to do is find them. Then I will know. I will finally have a reason why…" Her words dribbled of with a frustrated sigh.

"I need to go back. Doc needs to go back; she has patients that need her. Bloody hell, the police are probably looking for all of us. Did you ever think of that? You have to come back. You can't stay here by yourself it's not safe." With each of my arguments, the belligerent look grows on Dawn's face. 

"She need not stay here. She could stay with mother and I", the sweet voice of my sister interceded. 

"Paige, stay out of it! It is none of your business. Dawn needs to go home. Her sister is worried about her".

"Like I have worried over you, my brother? Why should I not help her? I know what it is like to have a quest. To have your heart ripped by the longing to know…Just to know the WHY of things."

"It is not a bad idea", Giles interrupted. "She could send you back and stay with Paige. I would help her find the monks.

"Please, Spike. Oh, please. I promise I will come back to Sunnydale afterward. I can come back at anytime you know; all I have to do is paint another picture. Please…"

Slowly I nod, hating myself for giving in. Then turning to my sister I say, "Paige, I think you and I need to have a talk."

***

  The glowing green portal opened. The familiar objects and furniture swirled together in a tornado of paint and darkness. Doc and I tumbled out in a heap on the living room rug living room. I let out a sharp bark of pain as the light from the window catches me across my neck. "Damn it! She had to have known that would happen."

Doc scrambled up, and gave the curtain a sharp yank. 

            "Buffy! Red!" I shout.

            Willow came down the stairs at a run, launching herself into my arms from the third step. "Oh Spike, thank gods your home! Her eyes search over my shoulder, and she pushes me away. "Oh no! Oh no! NO!!!" Her voice rises in an agonizing scream. "Where are Dawn and Buffy? Why didn't they come back with you?" 

            The speech I'd been planning about Dawn's decision dies on my lips when I see the tortured look on her face. "Dawn's in the past."

 Her face crumples in on itself, and she begins to cry great big soggy tears; the type of tears I have seen her cry only twice: the night I stood beside her at Tara's grave, and the night we buried Buffy. I can't face those tears again.

I shake her. "Buffy? Willow, what about Buffy?" 

            Doc grabs my arm. "Stop it. You're hurting her. Can't you tell she's in shock?"

            "I need to know what happened to Buffy."

Xander enters from the kitchen, wearing only pajama bottoms and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "She went into the painting after you and Dawn."

~Buffy~

            Buffy flung herself into the opaque, oily darkness. Her environment was not so much black as an absence of white. Oily blobs of translucent color swam before her eyes. When she focused on the ones nearest to her, she could detect individual bubbles of red, navy, emerald, and black but the over all effect was an endless sea of  brownish-black. She wondered where Xander had gotten to and attempted to swim through the goo back to where she had thought she had come. Her movement sent her in to a somersaulting tumble. She rolled over and over until she could not tell weather she faced up or down. She gave a shout to warn Xander not to move, but her voice made no sound, in fact there were no sounds at all.  She realized she couldn't even feel her own body, which was really wigging her out. The viscous material clung to her, blocking out all sensation. Even her individual fingers were covered. She imagined herself waving her hand in front of her face, and she thought she managed it, but the only thing she could see was a slight shift in color. In the end, with all sensation blocked, the faintly undulating orbs in were the only thing that let her know she was still moving. She watched the colors slide across each other, merging into darkness at the edge of her vision.  

"One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…35 Mississippi…60 Mississippi…after 130 Mississippi she lost track and had to start over. Minutes passed and then hours. Buffy wondered how it would be before Will would open the portal again, and what would happen when none of them were there.

Her eyes were beginning to play tricks on her. The shifting blobs hinted at vague figures that she could only detect out of the corner of her eyes.  She tried to shift and turn to track them, but she was getting more and more disoriented.  One of the figures seemed more solid then the others and she kept her eyes trained on it. An amorphous being began to take shape. 

            "Mom?"


	7. home

~Dawn~

            "Where did you send him? Where?  He promised he would always take care of me," Paige whimpered.

 "That bastard…" Just like Spike to leave me to clean up his mess. I struggle to carry Rupert over to the couch. Paige staggered over and grabbed an arm to assist me. Between us, we manage to lay him down on the seat. He is too long for it and we leave his legs propped up on the armrest. He looks awkward and uncomfortable, but that's what you're supposed to do for a head injury, right, raise their feet?  

            "You want to let me in on why Spike went and attacked him?" I asked. She ignored my question. I watched her open one of the shuttered windows and leaned out into the night air. Her face was pale. Loose strands of light brown hair clung to her moist cheeks in spite of the breeze. She stood with her back turned to me, clenching her hands on the windowsill, over and over; the knuckles blanching with the force. 

            "Why do you call him Spike?" She asked finally, continuing to look out the window. 

            "I …ahmm…." Gods, what should I tell her? Spike was her brother, but I just didn't think she could handle even some of the tamer stories that Spike had regaled me with.  "Mmm, it's just a nick name."

            "I realize that," she said condescendingly. "I want to know why it was bestowed on him."

            Okay…It always used to make me laugh the way he told the story, but now that I think of it, it was pretty sick. Well, she asked for it. "Spike got his nick name because he liked to torture his victims. He'd give them a choice- either listen to his poetry or have a rail road stake driven through their head."

            Something inside her seemed to crumple. She sank down to the floor, back against the wall, and rested her forehead against her knees. "It's true then? He is evil?"

            I couldn't help pitying her, maybe I shouldn't have, but I did. She wasn't the only one who had had a bad day on account of Spike. "Your brother is a god damned son of a bitch with a big mouth, a lousy sense of timing, and the impulse control of a three year old, but he's not evil, or at least not as evil as some of the demons I've met." 

            She stared at me with her mouth open for a while. I guess I shocked her with some of the language I used. 

            "Where did he go?" She asked again. 

"Back home." Back to Buffy I thought bitterly. 

"You need to send me there," She demanded. "William promised he would away take care of me."

"Well, he promised me that too and he's not here. You'll just have to take care of yourself." We sat in silence for a while, both of us waiting for the Watcher to wake up. In a way I was glad things had turned out like they had. If it all hadn't gone so quickly, I don't think Spike or Dr. Lawrence would have left. I was on my own now…. on my own for the first time in my life.  The thought came as a shock, and I didn't know how to feel about it. 

            "On my own", I whispered the words to myself, as if saying them out loud would make them more real.

"What?"

"Ah…I just said you're on your own."

~Dr. Lawrence~

"You shouldn't have left her!" The grim faced man in the pajama bottoms shouted and shook his fist at William.

"She's a grown woman. She had the right to decide what she wanted to do."

"You promised to protect her." The man made an attempt to push William, but the vampire brushed his hand away as if it were and insect.

"I left her with a Watcher. She's fine. You're the one who screwed up. How could you have sent Buffy go into that alone?"  William turned his back toward the man, and grabbed the red headed woman by the arm shaking her. "Where is she Willow? Where is she? 'Cause she sure didn't end up in England with us." 

"Let go of her, Spike."

            "Or what….. You bloody poof! 

Frustrated the man shoved William and William shoved him back. _Why does it always have to denigrate into violence with men?_

"Stop it! Stop it…stop it!  The red haired woman tried to push between them. "I didn't intend to send her in alone; Xander was supposed to go with her. And I tried to get her back… I did! 

The men continued to ignore us both, busily thumping each other with their testosterone induced hysteria.  The red headed woman yanked at the man, and I pulled on William, but it was no use. William was on top now bashing the poor fellow's head into the carpeted floor over and over. 

I stepped back and surveyed the scene with a grimace. "I…Have…Had…Enough!"  I opened the curtain with a snap sending a stream of yellow across the side of William's face. 

            He clapped a hand to his cheek and rolled off his hapless victim, "Bloody hell… What didcha do that for?"

            "It was the only way I could think of to get your attention. And now that I have it, I have something to say. You people need to stop fighting and get your act together so you can rescue your friend, because I am sick to death of having to deal with you children. I want a bath, I want a clean clothes, and a scotch! NOW!"

~Dawn~

            "Miss Paige, where ever have you been? I 'ave been so worried. Almost rung the constable I did. And who are all these people?

"Oh, Mrs. Norris, we have had the most awful time. I had Mr. Giles escort me to the station. I knew mother would never remember to pick up my cousin Dawn, and I have been so looking forward to her visit. She's been away at school, you remember. Anyway the service at the station was just terrible. That's why we are so late. They lost Dawn's trunk. It is gone…utterly vanished.   And I am just so tired. Would you be a gem and…"

 Rupert interrupted her babble, "Miss Paige please convey my apologies to your mother for keeping you out so late." The two exchanged a lingering look as Rupert gradually edged his way toward the door.

"Oh, Mr. Giles, do you have to go? Surely you would like to warm yourself by the fire before you have to go out again? 

"I beg you forgive my hurry, but I must be off."

 He took Paige's hand in his own and brought it to his lips. Wow, there is something to be said for guys in this time. He turned toward me and gave a little half bow. I guess I didn't rate any hand kissing. "Miss Dawn, I will send you the information we discussed as soon as I can locate the address. Until then, ladies, I bid you good evening."  

"Mrs. Norris, would you see that Dawn's room is ready? Suddenly I am so tired."

"I should think so. You were a naughty girl, going off without telling anyone like you did.  And you just getting over being sick and all. 

"Oh, Paige, I didn't realize you'd been sick! Of course you can go to bed. Don't worry about me; Mrs. Norris will take good care of me."

It felt odd to be in Spike's home. Mrs. Norris escorted me to the parlor after Paige left. I wandered around the room trailing my fingers over the mantle and table tops trying to imagine Spike here, living among all lace and doilies. The room seemed almost claustrophobic with its clutter, china figurines covered almost every available tabletop and I felt like I was going to wipe out whole herds of the little things every time I turned around in this skirt. I sat down on the edge of the chair and I tried to picture him, maybe wearing a suit like Rupert's leaning against the mantle, but I couldn't maintain the vision. The shadow kept morphing back to the Spike I knew, wearing his leather duster and bleached hair. 

I picked up a small leather book lying on the floor beside the chair. Flipping open the first page I read the inscription_. To my darling son- May your poetic muse never lead you astray-Your loving Mother._ Well, he certainly got lead astray by something, I smirked. 

I couldn't get over the fact that I held Spike's poetry book in my hand. I read the first few. God, they were terrible. I sat in the dark beside the fire for the longest time thinking about Spike and wondering about what he had been like when he was my age. I ran my fingers along the arm of the leather chair and closed my eyes. I could almost smell his scent. 

"Miss? Miss… If you'll come with me please? I've turned down your bed and borrowed a nightgown from Miss Paige for you. 

****

            "I thought I would never make it through dinner without disgracing myself!"

            "You did fine", replied Paige, as she settled herself on the sofa. "Mother never realized anything was amiss, but I thought Mrs. Norris had swallowed a lemon ball when you used your meat knife to butter your bread."

            "That's wrong?"

            Paige giggled, "Of course it is, you are suppose to use your bread knife".

            I gave her a blank look.

            "The small one with the rounded edges?  The one that was lying across that small plate."  

            "Oh, okay. I'll know better next time." I paused unsure about how to phrase my next question. I didn't want to hurt Paige's feelings; she had been awful nice to me. "I'm not surprised your mother didn't notice.  She drank an awful lot of wine with dinner. Ah, um, has she always done that?"

            Paige looked down at her hands sadly and spoke without facing me. "No, losing my father was hard on her, and then after William died things became worse." She paused. "I did not help matters, then, ranting and raving that William was still alive, and that we needed to find him. I am surprised the doctor did not commit me to Bedlam." 

I didn't want her running around trying to find him and accidentally getting herself killed. "You need to realize that you aren't dealing with your brother anymore, or not just your brother. He has a demon inside him."

"Surely there is someway to remove the demon?" 

            "I don't know of any, besides if you removed the demon all you would be left with is your brother's corpse. He's dead, remember? The demon is the only thing that is keeping him up and walking around."

            "There must be a way….there must be!" She rubbed her eyes furiously.

I thought I had better change the topic to something fun and what's more fun then gossiping about boys? "So, tell me how you met Rupert?"

"You were there…He saved my life dragging out of harms way. He is so brave." She simpered.

"What? That was the first time you met him and he's already asked you to marry him? Wow! Guys in this time must not have the fear of commitment that the ones in mine do. So are you going to marry him?" 

"Oh, yes. He asked Mother earlier today when he brought over the address. He's quite well off, you know, and Mother thought he was quite a catch. I think a spring wedding in the garden will be lovely don't you?"

"But Paige, do you love him?"

"Why do I need to love him? He has access to the council and to magics that I want. I will be a good wife to him and bare his children. What more is there?"

_She says it so matter-of-factly that it almost blows me away_. "You know, I don't think that's what your brother would want for you."

"And what would my brother want for me?" She said in her iciest tones. 

"He'd want you to be happy and in love, I think."

"Well, he is not here, is he? That is what would have made me happy. I loved him. This way, maybe, I will at learn enough magic to undo the harm that has been done to him." 

~Dr. Lawrence~

I open the door on the microwave and remove the two cups of coffee, luxuriating in their heat.  I have been cold for a week! Remind me not to schedule my next European vacation in England. I want to go someplace warm! Like the Mediterranean. I force the first cup into the hands of the red headed woman leaning against the counter to my left.  I picking up the second cup and bring it to my lips with a smile. I don't even care if it is instant! Thank god for modern conveniences.

 I steer the woman to the table and urge her to sit. She cradles her head in her hands and ignores the coffee. I look up as William enters, swinging a bottle of scotch in his right hand and a packet of cigarettes in his left. He's followed by the grim looking man who had announced that Dawn's sister had tried to follow us earlier. 

He splashes some scotch into the woman's coffee cup and then takes a swig from the bottle for himself. I took the scotch from William's hands and poured a slug of it in my coffee. 

"The cops have been all over us. They're convinced that Dawn did something to the Doctor here. No mention of you, Spike. I don't think they realize you were there."

"Damn, you mean Buffy didn't raise a ruckus? Can see how much I'm valued" 

"Give it a break. It's not like Buffy thought you'd done anything. The police can't handle what we handle anyway."

"But we need to tell the police that Dawn is ok", I said.

"Just how do you think you're going to explain not one, but 2 missing bodies. If we go to the police now, they will probably want to arrest you." William replied.

"But why…I have no reason to want to harm Dawn or her sister."

"When have the police ever needed a reason to arrest someone?"

"Spike… Why did Dawn stay?" The woman asked.

"Dawn got a lead on those monks that made her. I left her with Gile's great grand father, she'll be fine. She can come back anytime she wants."

"We need her back now! She's the only one who can get Buffy back. I can't do it. It must be something about Dawn's power. I have tried and tried to open the portal back up, but it's like it's jammed. I can force it just so far but then my power bounces back at me."

"When did you first try?" I asked.

"It's been almost 2 days." 

"Buffy's been trapped for TWO days! We've got to get her out. No telling what she's facing in there!" William flung himself up out of the chair and began to pace the room.

 "It's not like I haven't tried, but it's like I keep pushing and pushing but something is pushing back with equal force. I get nowhere." 

 "Wait!" I grabbed at William's sleeve as he paced by. "William, remember, two days ago Dawn tried to send us back after the fight with the Watchers."  

"Bloody Hell, you're right. What probably happened was that Dawn tried to send us back just when you open the portal for Buffy. Buffy's stuck between. The door can't open and can't close. Stuck good and proper.

"So how do we get her back?"

The red headed woman thumped the table with her coffee mug."If that's true then my power and her power are stuck pushing against one another. So all I need to is withdrawal withdraw my spells and the door should open."

~Buffy~

"Mom?" Buffy squeaked. Buffy looked at the figure in horror, she was sure it was her mom; her mother that had been dead for 8 years.  Beneath the globs of oil, Joyce's features were rotted and decayed. The familiar wrath extended her bony arms; offering Buffy an oily bundle. Buffy didn't move.

            "Here take your sister." The monster said pleasantly.

            "No! That's not my sister!"

            "Buffy, you know we talked about this." The figures jaw didn't appear to move in time with its speech, and the shifting colors gave it an out of sync quality like a badly animated cartoon. "You promised to look out for your sister. It's your duty as the Slayer"

            "No, I don't want too", she whined. Buffy scrambled and thrashed about in the glutinous morass trying to put some distance between herself and the proffered bundle. Her mother trailed behind her. Ribbons of darkness streamed off the bundle as the fiend continue to push it toward her. "You promised me you'd always protect her."

            "No!" Buffy shouted. 

            The world shook and rumbled; causing the oily sphere's to dance like the glitter in a snow globe, obliterating the form of the monster. The quake made Buffy become aware of her surroundings again. The monster had been just a hallucination.  

_Willow__ did that! I know she did, Buffy thought. _I just have to hang on until she can get me out. _"One Mississippi… two Mississippi…"_

~Buffy~

Despair pressed in, drowning Buffy in the weight of its inky black cloak. She juggled the baby back and forth; its weight seemed to be increasing by the minute. She pushed through the oily blackness, blindly searching for her mother to give her back this burden.  The glistening blobs obscured everything. The baby kept grabbing at her; wanting more and more, and all she could think of was how badly she wanted to shake it and tell it to just grow up! She didn't want to be responsible. She didn't want to be anyone's mommy. 

 In a small part of her mind, Buffy knew that this wasn't real, but that didn't seem to matter anymore.  

~Dawn~

The carriage draws up to the address Rupert has given me. The place is slightly seedy with disrepair and looks more like a walled fortress then a church.

"Miss…? Are you sure you don't want me to wait?"  The coachman asks. 

"No…No, I'm sure I will be fine." I am not sure I will be fine at all, but I doubt that a having a carriage waiting will help me escape.  I approach the cloister gate with trepidation, and knock hesitantly on the wooden door with my knuckles. No answer. I knock harder, maybe they are at prays, or something. At last the heavy wooden door opens. 

"Hi, my name is Dawn, and I need to speak to one of the monks about something." The guy who opens the door is short, the top of his tonsured head only comes up to my shoulder. The hood of his gray habit flaps against the back of his neck, obscuring part of his face.

"Non siete permessi entare. Non parlo inglese" 

I may not speak Italian, but I got the gist when he tried to shut the door in my face. I shove my foot in the crack. "Look, I need to speak to someone. I'm from the Watcher's council. 

"Watchers…? Non conoscono niente.  Gente idot." 

He tries to shove me back out the door, but I force my way forward. The monk looses his balance, and falls backward on to his rear end. I stifle a giggle. The door hits the wall with a bang, and I step through wondering how far I will get before I find someone who speaks English or they throw me out. From out of nowhere, a silent explosion seems to rock the monastery. It feels like I have passed though some type of barrier. The world glows green for a moment, and I feel sick to my stomach and dizzy.  

The little man screams and scrambles crablike away from me.  "Il Mio Dio." He crossed himself.  "La chiave.... LA CHIAVE.... PADRE...VENUTO RAPIDAMENTE....E LA CHIAVE.. 

A whole herd of men in gray robes gathers, surrounding me, and holding out thier crusafixes like I am some sort of demon. I stand there shaking. Finally, an old man with a baldhead and papery white cheeks takes my arm, guiding me across the courtyard, and into a small office. The other monks crowd in behind us. The man dismisses them with a wave of his hand and issues some rapid orders in Italian. 

"Singnora, sit...sit. I am Monsignor Pitor and you are? 

"I'm the Key."

~Doctor Lawrence~

I sit at the table listening to the threesome weave their plans for removing the spells the witch had used to send Dawn's sister into the painting. Withdrawing into myself, I begin to formulate what I will write in Dawn's folder.  

_Pt. has discharged self on her own recognizance. Clinical support and medication terminated as­­­­­­­­­____._ I make a mental note to remind myself to get a look at a calendar soon so I can find out how long we had been gone. Thank god, it wasn't like the fairy tales where we might have come back 100 years later.  

_Pt. seeks to resolve identity issues by beginning search for the origin of her birth. _I wish her luck, but I don't think she's going to find what she's seeking. The only place she's going to find what she needs is inside herself.Why is it that I can never seem to convince my patients of this? 

I feel so empty and lost, like a pair of mittens left behind on the train. I don't have a purpose anymore; my part in this fiasco is over, and my client has gone on to her own devices. I feel like I failed her. I pour another shot of scotch into my empty coffee mug and look at the people at the table…a witch, a vampire, and … well I didn't know what the young man was but I am sure it wasn't anything normal.  I wonder how I fit in, and why do I suddenly wanted to fit in so badly that my whole body aches? I can get up and call a taxi to take me home and no one would try to stop me. So why do I feel so bereft? 

 All the training I have suggests that lots of people blame forces outside of themselves for the way things turn out so they don't have to accept the responsibility for their own actions. It's fate, its magic, it's anybody fault but mine. Erikson, one of my favorite theorists, calls that magical thinking. Magic, I think it's the magic, that's getting to me. Here I have spent years convincing other people that magic wasn't real only to find out it has been real all along. I look around the table again. They aren't looking for excuses, for them magic is a tool to be used, and like any tool it seemed to have its limits. I wondered how often I had overlooked magic as a possible explanation to my patient's symptoms. I will really have to make an effort to do a comprehensive case review when I get back, I thought.

I turn my attention back to the group. They were still discussing the merits of different strategies.  I gave some serious consideration to just excusing myself and calling a taxi to take me home, but Mr. Harris's words made me stop and think. Just what were the police going to say when I showed up without Dawn? If they had been accusing her of murder, how fast would they turn on me when I couldn't produce proof that she was still alive? Shit! I better let the hospital deal with this. One thing about having one bureaucracy deal with another bureaucracy is that it slows down the response time. Hopefully, it will be time enough for both of the sisters to get back, and if it wasn't well there would be no point in putting off the consequences. The voices at the table came to a halt as I picked up the phone and started to dial. As luck would have it, Donald must have been sitting right next to the phone, because he answered it on the first ring.

 "Hi Donald, it's me, Teresa. Yes, I'm here at the Summers' home right now. Yes, yes, everything is all right. No, neither one of the sisters is here right now. They left on sort of a retreat. Yes, I left the hospital willingly… I just didn't have time to leave a message and we have been out of phone contact. Oh, just out in the desert. Ms. Summer's felt the need to show me where she does some of her painting. No, Donald, I don't expect you to tell the police that. I don't expect you to tell them anything at all. Client / Doctor privilege remember. Just tell them that I'm back and they can call the search off. Yes… I will tell the Summers' to call the police as well. They should be back soon. I know it's an unusual treatment technique, Donald, but the situation seemed to warrant some unusual measures. Go a head and call a special investigation, I haven't done anything wrong! You can't tell me how to treat my patients, when I am doing my damnest to act in their best interests. Well if that's the way, the hospital feels then I'll resign. Hell yes I am tired, and I do too mean it! I QUIT. I slammed the phone down on the cradle and turned to find 3 sets of eyes staring at me in shocked silence. 

"Bollocks. They can't fire you over this. When Dawn gets back…"

I interrupted, "William, pay attention, they didn't fire me. I quit." 

"Shame you had to go and lose your job just 'cause you got tangled up with us", said the red headed woman as she handed me back my cup of coffee.

"Thank you …mmm…Willow." 

I pour another shot of scotch in my cup and shrug. "Here's too my new life as a private therapist. God knows how I will make a living; maybe I should specialize in demon psychology?"

"Hmm… Not bad idea. You'd have to have some odd office hours though."

~Spike~

Doc was well on her way to getting royally pissed. She curled up on the sofa with the bottle scotch, having forgone the coffee all together. I know she's exhausted but she won't leave. Don't know what she thinks she can do. I can tell she's blaming herself, and I wonder if I should say something, but I'm not the comforting sort. She'll have to pull her head out of her arse on her own. 

I stood by the fireplace, and watched Red smooth out a layer of glittery sand. She drew yet another set of symbols on it.  I watched the sand spark and fizzle again, and hit the wall in frustration. "Blimey, Will! What is taking so long?" She still couldn't figure out how to unknot all the layers of spells she had thrown at the painting while trying to get Buffy back. 

Xander ducked under my arm and began to pry up the dented plasterboard with his fingers. "Fucking, shit, Spike, do you know how much time that will take to repair? Lay off Willow, man. She must have thrown a hundred spells at that blasted paint trying to get you all back."

"Quit it both of you. You are breaking my concentration, and this is hard enough!"

Her eyes flashed black and Xander and I both backed away with some trepidation.  

I started pacing again, and drew an evil look from Doc.

            "Would you quit moving? Watching you is making me sea sick…see sick…S.E.E. sick… hehehe. Oh god, I am so going to regret drinking this much tomorrow."

            Will called up the power again. This time, the lattice of glowing spirals that emanated from the painting appeared to be growing thinner. 

"All right, this should be the last one!" She exclaimed. 

She tinkered with the sand and spouted some more mumbo jumbo. We held our breath as the light surrounding the painting gave a flash bang and was still. For a long moment no one moved, until I noticed Xander turning blue and gave him a shove. "Breathe!" 

"Well, where is she? Shouldn't she have just popped right out?" I demanded turning on Willow in disappointment.

"I don't know! I have done everything I know how to do. Damn it, Spike, we need Dawn! Look, I know I can't use the picture to send you back, but I am pretty sure that I can send you to that time period as long as you can give me a month and a year. Spike, you have to convince her to come back, its Buffy's only chance."

~Dawn~

The light dripped through the open window leaving honey colored puddles on the stone floor. My shivering abates as the warmth of the room sinks into my skin. The monk presses a goblet of wine into my hands and gestures for me to drink. I have to hand it to the Italians; wine is a much better stimulant for shock then hot tea with milk.

 Setting the decanter on the desk, he takes a seat across from my own, and stares at me in silence. Rolling his glass back and forth between his palms, he appears to contemplate what I have told him. His silence is so intense that it seems to drown out the sounds coming from garden outside the window. Finally, he places his glass on the table. 

 "As you say this will occur... and I must believe you, as you are the key. Bespelled and in human form, but still the Key." 

I felt something relax deep inside myself. He believed me! "So you didn't know any of this?" 

"The Key came to us many centuries ago. Much of its history has been lost; all we have are our own records. I know only that we hide it from a great evil, that in return it is generous enough to perform a few miniscule tasks for us."

"Like what kind of tasks?" I inquire suspiciously.

Pitor chuckled and whispered conspiratorially, "It, mmm…you provide us with the most wonderful hot baths outside of Rome".  He clasped his hands in ecstasy. "A hot bath is a gift of the gods, is it not?"  

"kachkkkk" I almost spit a mouth full of wine at him as I choked on the image. "You mean… I am some sort of mystical hot water heater?"

"Non, non, you miss understand, the Key is a great power. We only borrow a little in return for our protection."

"Please, you must know more then that. What am I? Who am I?" I pleaded. "The Watcher's said I was a homunculus. What is that?" 

 "The Key is a great power that has the ability to open passages between other realms.  As for who you are, Singnora, I do not know. The key is just energy. It has no…ah how you say…personalita….ah… personality. As to the other, a homunculus is a clay figurine made animato…animated by magic. It has the appearance of flesh, but it has no…spirito.  It has no soul."  

I sat there staring at him in disbelief.  I didn't know what to feel… My breathing becomes ragged and I begin to hyperventilate. _Am I a soulless freak?  _

The priest poured more wine in my cup, gesturing for me to drink. I throw it back in a gulp. _Would it be so bad to be soulless? Spike's lived a long time without one and he's pretty cool. What difference would it make really?  __Screw that! It makes a lot of difference! I saw how Buffy acted toward Spike when he didn't have a soul…_

"You misunderstand. I do not know if you have a soul or not.  I do know we can not make one." 

"But you made a body for me… or you will. God, this is getting so confusing."

"Singnora, before this day none of my order had ever considered hiding the Key in a human form. But as it has come to pass; then so it will be…"

 "Wait! So you didn't know you were going to turn me into a human? This was my own plan? YOU MEAN I DID THIS TO MYSELF?" I shouted in disbelief. 

"Si…and it is a good one…no? You have survived, and the Uno Senza Nome, she is no more."

"But why did you take away my memories? Why did you send me to the Slayer?"

"I do not know, Singnora, maybe you should ask yourself that."

_You mean I can?_ I thought. I didn't even have the words out when a monk charged in the door speaking in an unintelligible babble and gesturing behind him. I picked up a few words that were similar to the Spanish I learned in high school. It sounded like they had caught and intruder. But I wasn't expecting the next voice I heard. 

"Spike! What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be home….with Buffy." 

"That's the problem, pet, Buffy ain't home. She and Red whipped up a spell to try to find us. Now Buffy has disappeared. Will thinks she's stuck in your painting.  You need to come home. Now!"

"You save her! You and the Scoobies can do anything! Remember? God knows that you don't need me."

"Bollocks! Don't you think we would if we could?  Will says it's your magic and you're the only one who can get her back out. Are you going to leave your sister trapped just because you are chuffed at me.  She's your sister, damn it!

"Where do you get off telling me what to do! I'm not going anywhere, until I get my questions answered!"

Spike and I glared at each other, but he could tell I was serious. 

"You'll hurry?"

"Yes!"

I entered the chapel, stepping in front of the old man. The stone walls were washed in a green glow that emanated from the glowing sphere at the end of the nave. So that's what I really looked like…hmm. Well, I wasn't beautiful, but I guess the color could be considered pretty; candy apple green, spring green, and new leaf green all rolled up into a gigantic ball. 

Spike started to hum; "It Ain't Easy Being Green" and I elbowed him in the ribs. Slowly I began to walk toward the sphere with my hand out stretched. "Mmm…hi…I just wanted to see you…ah… me… and ask you some questions.  

My fingertips touched the sphere and seemed to stick. I tried to pull my hand back, but the green seemed to ooze up my fingertips and swallowed my elbow. Spike took my other arm and attempted to pull me loose. The light dimmed and flashed as it drew me toward its center. I screamed in terror. My body was dissolving; I could feel my bones melting under the intensity of the energy. 

Somewhere, between my toes turning to viscous goo and my spine melting into a glob of green jello, I stopped screaming.  I seemed to be able to see in a 360° arc. Thank goodness most of the view was blank wall and floor or I would never have been able to pull my focus back together. As it was, I felt sick enough to up-chuck.  This made me realize that I was feeling things again, although not feeling them with the same intensity as before. It was more like remembering how something felt more then actually feeling it. I could hear too, well sorta. Everything sounded like it was coming from deep underwater. Spike was screaming at the monk to do something. He sounded like Jaba the Hut, all slow-mo and gurgly. 

"Hello_…" I thought._

_Hello… My voice echoed back. Oh shit, my mind's empty it echoes._

_Hahhehe__…_

The giggle startled me. "Mmm…hi…I just wanted to ask some questions."  I paused; nothing happened, not even the giggle. I remember one of mom's old sayings; _it's okay to talk to yourself, but when you expect yourself to answer, there's a problem.  __God, what if it didn't know anymore, then I did. Shit! Well maybe I need to be more specific in what I asked. "Why am I here…I mean why are we, the key, here in this specific place with the monks?"  _

The minute I uttered the thought, I felt like I was plunged into a vat of evil black tar. Its pungent odor seemed to cling to me filling my nose with the acid smell of a thousand flattened skunks. I retched with nausea until I felt like I had turned myself inside out.  The sensation was so intense and terrifying that I if I had still had a body I would have passed out. 

I focused down on the smaller swirls of green that streaked the black, until the nausea receded to a more tolerable gut knotting ache. The green seemed to dodge and weave through the black abyss, trying to escape the malevolent darkness as it tried to bind the green to itself with dark tendrils. A purple mist was there too. It seemed to swell and then retreat, but I didn't understand what I was supposed to be seeing. All it reminded me of, was one of those swirlly sand painting things, the ones where you shake and the sand drips down making a new picture each time. 

"I'm sorry…I don't understand." I tried to keep the whine out of my voice.

There was a pause, the sand painting disappeared, and I could see the chapel again.  A whole herd of monks had appeared in the room, waving their incense, and rattling their prayer beads. Spike was squished up against the back wall, but I could still see him there. He was all vamped out like he tends to do when he gets upset.  _Humph…He's probably shitting in his britches that I wouldn't be around to save his precious Buffy, I thought._

_That made me feel petty, which made me feel mad. I mean she is my sister! I do love her, most of the time, and I don't want her trapped in some other dimension forever_. I focused my mine back to the task at hand; the sooner I found out what I had came for, the sooner I could work on saving her.  It would be nice to save her for a change. I was getting so tired of that '_Oh, Dawn's in trouble it must be Tuesday attitude of hers'_.  _Like she was 'all superhero' and didn't get her butt in hot water every once in a while.  The Scobbies had saved her lots, and has she ever said thank you? No! _

"Look, can you explain it on a level I can understand?" The sensation that followed felt a lot like Glory rooting around in my brain and almost sent me over the edge into another panic attack, but this time the picture that formed was familiar.  It was a sunny day in good old Southern California. I was swinging on the swings in front of Jackson Elementary school. I had to be about seven or eight. _Geesh__, I was such a little fattie! Thank god for puberty, at least I thinned out then.  I could feel myself responding to the image, my legs pumping, and my arms pulling; forcing myself higher and higher. When out of nowhere I felt someone grab the chain, breaking my forward moment and sending me crashing down into a sobbing heap on the playground dirt. Nails dug into my arm and I found myself being shaken like an old rag. I looked up and it was Glory! I pulled away with all my strength and scrambled backward banging my head on the swing. She stalked after me, shouting obscenities, and accusing me of making her break a nail. I scuttled rapidly on all fours, backing into a pair of legs covered in a long woolen habit. It was Pitor- or someone who looked just like him. The monsignor stepped between me a Glory, protecting me from her. I would have run away at that point, but more monks surrounded the swings, trapping me in a circle with them. Weapons appeared a glowing sword with a crucifix embedded in the handle and an iron axe attached to what looked like a femur of some large animal. The two began to fight, ignoring me for the moment._

 The monks in the circle began calling my name, shouting, 'come here Dawnie, we'll keep you safe'.  One of the monks held out a plate of cookies tempting me with them. I snatched a cookie from the plate and dodged away from their grasping hands. Mom had always said I shouldn't take candy from strangers but she didn't say anything about cookies and this one looked particularly good; all warm and gooey, chocolate oozing out over my fingers. I gleefully bit into it, and then spat it out with a disappointed shutter. Ugh! It tasted like sawdust and iron bars. I felt the world go all swimmy strange. Hands grabbed and pulled my away. A trap! 

Glory spied what was happening and behead the first monk with a gleeful cry. She began to come after the monks that had me, screaming and hacking at them with fierce determination.  They fought her off sheltering me with their bodies until they finally completed the spell that transported me here. 

I was back in the chapel again and this time I was able to pick out the shimmer of purple light that both bound me to this place and protected me from Glory.  I waited for a while and when nothing else came to me, I realized how silent it was in the room and it dawned on me that there was no one else in the chapel.  I was alone! Even Spike was gone. _He'd gone back to Sunnydale, back to her!_ I felt like stamping my feet in frustration. Then I remembered she was trapped in my painting. _Ha! Now she couldn't have him either!_

Okay they trapped me. Some part of me already knew that. The dream I remembered was true but it wasn't complete, I had forgotten how Glory and her minions had harried me. Other things were coming back now. I remember just how pathetically grateful I had been for the monks protection and how interested I had been in their daily lives. I had never paid much attention to humans before that time. They had seemed like bugs to me, earth bound and short lived bugs at that; nothing like me. I remember being fascinated by how they interacted with each other. It was addictive, like soap opera, and at some point I started wanting to be apart of it. _Oh gods, it really was my idea!_ I even allowed them to use my energy to heat the water in this place! I am surprised they ever sent me to Buffy. I could still be stuck here powering their light bulbs. 

 _Speaking of…"Why did they send me to Buffy?" _

My view of the chapel went greener then it all ready was, and the world seemed to bounce up and down as if I was inside a green rubber ball. I felt like I had just been shrugged at, like…it…I was saying I don't know. All right, it hasn't happened to you yet either so I guess it's logical you don't know. I wasn't happy about it not being able to answer my question, but I didn't want to blame myself for something that was out of its….my control. 

Ok the last important question. "Can you tell if I am real? Do I have a soul?" 

The world exploded with the brilliance of a million crystal snowflakes glittering in the sun, and for the first time I saw the inter-consecutiveness of everything. It was what Willow was always going on about how energy from a high spot flowed to where it was low. Witches, demons, and angels acted as little dams, some collecting dark energy and some light. I knew what the key was now. I wasn't a lock pick, but more of a magical engineer. I could channel the flow of magic between dimensions. I saw so many worlds, some I had visited, and some that were still waiting to be explored. I saw it all…and it was boring. Only I had never realized it until the monks rescued me from Glory. I wanted to be human! The monks had cared about me. They didn't put me in this body just to hide me. I had asked, no begged them for it. They cared for me. They had died protecting me from Glory. They died giving me my wish and I knew now that only my form had changed.  I was still who I was. I had just learned and grown. '_What is essential is invisible to the eye'. Doc was right my form didn't change anything. I still existed, I was me. Replete unto myself. It didn't matter! It didn't matter what form I wore, I am REAL.  _

I don't know how long I floated in that happy, hazy heaven of belonging before the thoughts of all family and friends started crowding into my brain. I realized I had a choice, Buffy was never suppose to die on that tower. I would have just changed forms again…be what I was now, and that wouldn't be so bad…boring yes, but Glory would be dead anyway so the world wouldn't end. I could choose to give it up; make it easier for all of us.

In an instant, I knew what I had to do. Go back, rescue Buffy, and offer her that choice. Between us, we could change the past. No dying…no being torn out of heaven and raised from the dead…no First…just a fresh start for the two of us. 

 "How the hell do I get out of here?" I thought. There wasn't an answer, and I realized there wouldn't be one. Sometime during that feeling of belonging my psyche had united. The Key and Dawn had merged. I would have to figure this out on my own. Then a realization hit me with the force of a hurricane. Oh, shit! I don't have a body to go back too. I'm dead!  

"I'm dead. I am dead. I…am…dead." I said it to myself several times in rapid succession trying to take in the enormity of that fact.  I kept talking to myself, "I don't have to go back. I am dead. I don't have to do anything. Not save Buffy, not complete the work for the gallery showing, and no need to worry about finding a boyfriend who could deal with all the weird shit now. I am dead. No need to deal with what happened between Spike and me. I…am…dead." 

_Well, is that so bad?__ That's how this whole thing started anyway! I wanted to be dead. I wanted to be dead so I wouldn't have to deal with all the shit that being in a family brings, but now that I had seen how boring and lonely the other side of the coin was, I didn't want to be dead. Suddenly, I didn't want to be dead at all. Dying must be kin to Mrs. Corbin's electric shock therapy. I could see clearly now. _What, the hell, had I been thinking, trying to kill myself!__

            I want to go back. I need a body to go back to…preferably my own. I know the monks made this body…somehow, so I should be able to make a body too. All I have to do is find out how they did it. I need a monk! I shifted my focus to the chapel again but no one was there. Why is there never one of those gray robed pests around where you can find one? I pushed up trying to force my way out, only to hit the purple web that hid me from Glory. I ricocheted around the room like a pinball on speed until the energy was spent and I rolled back to my assigned place. Okay, that wasn't going to work. 

Time to think things through. The missing piece has to be here somewhere…I just have to see how things fit together. I think I almost saw it when we merged. Okay what do I know about myself as the Key. Well, I can channel magic between dimensions, and I make a damn fine water heater…._grrrr. _

What do I know about myself that will help? I'm good a research…I make a mean spaghetti…I am a really good artist. Artist…paint…painting…there was something there, if only I can remember. Why do I keep thinking about Dru and that painting? What was it? I was looking at the painting, and I brought my hand up, and I…wondered what would happen if I pushed. That's it! If I paint I picture of myself and go through I should wind up back inside myself! I bounced up and down for a few seconds and then settled on the floor with a thud. Paint… How stupid could I be? There is no paint here, and I don't even have hands to hold a paintbrush. All I am is energy in this form. Energy…E=mc something. How do people use energy to make art? Lasers! 

Burning the picture of myself into the wall wasn't as easy as I'd imagined. I had to concentrate and focus my power down so it would chip the stone not blast it to bits. The first time I tried, I smashed of a chunk the size of my head to rubble, which left a gapping dent about where my stomach would have been. I moved over to the next section of wall and tried again. This time a smaller shower of pebbles fell to the floor. I practiced with that for a time and once I got good, I tried to go even smaller. Now shower of fine sand fell to the floor. I had my tool! This I could use this to carve with.

 I settled into using my pencil sized chisel taking off only small layers of stone at a time. Maybe it was the form I was in but it was easier to work in negative space now. I could see barriers between dimentions so figuring out the height and depth I needed to sculpt my body was not much of a challenge. I took more time on the face. The whole time I was doing it I kept wondering if this was what I really looked like?  I also couldn't help but wonder what would happen if I made my feet smaller or my eyes bigger or if I forgot and left something off. Just encase I settled in and made my chisel even smaller trying to put even finer detail to my creation. When I had added the last eyelash and shaped the split in my pinky toe's nail where I had torn it off riding a bike when I was twelve and it hadn't grown back yet.  I added the scar on my leg where I slid into the piece of rock during softball practice I wanted all those memories. I hesitated about adding the newer cut on my arm where I tried to kill myself, but since I wanted to retain those memories too I added it. And when I judged to be finished I pushed. 

An orb of glowing energy pulsed briefly then shivered and solidified in a young woman with long brown hair.

Hi Buffy

Oh, Dawn, I'm so glad I found you. Where are the others? We need to get out of here. Its okay Buffy, Spike and Doctor Lawrence are already back home. I came to rescue you. You rescue me? What a laugh, I came here to rescue you! 

I don't need rescuing right now, but it looks like you could use some help. Willow wasn't able to bring you back. You've been stuck here awhile. Are you ready to go? 

If Willow can't bring me back, then how do you know you can?

I did a little time traveling while I was gone, and got to visit the Monks. Buffy looked at her blankly. You remember the ones that made me. Well, when I visited with them they taught me how my power works. I was never supposed to remain in this form. Glory's death should have released me, but it didn't.

Dawn looked her sister in the eye. The Powers didn't give you a choice when they made you the Slayer. I understand that. The monks didn't give me a choice when they captured me either. But I'm whole now, and I can choose what I want to be, and where I want to be. I want you to have the same choice.  I can't change the PTB's decision to make you the slayer, but I can give you a choice now. I can take us out of this place to any dimension… to any time you want. 

With a wave of her arm the scene shifts. The two girls stood on a platform overlooking a swirling abyss, around them their friends engaged in a silent battle. 

You don't have to jump, this time. You could just let me go. I wouldn't really die, I'd just return to my natural form a little sooner.

No, Dawn. That's not a choice I'm willing to make. I couldn't live with myself if I'd let you jump.

The scene reformed and changed. The key and the slayer floated formlessly in a miasma of warmth, love, and safety. 

You could stay here, where you'd be happy again. I would make sure they didn't drag you back this time.

She could see Buffy thinking about it. 

Dawn, why are you doing this? You're just making it that much harder.

I'm doing this because I want you to have some control over your own life. 

Epilog 

            From the LA Times

Well Known Artist Responds to Allegations of Art fraud

Santa Monica artist Dawn Summers responds to charges of attempted fraud brought by Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. MMOMA purchased the unsigned work, simply titled- nude on a red sofa, at an auction in Prague this summer for a little over five hundred thousand pounds.  While carbon dating of the canvas places the painting in the late 1800's, further evaluation, performed after the purchase, indicates the use of modern pigments. The issue of the paintings origin was further complicated by gallery documentation that substantiates the painting's existence as early as 1910. The painting was traced to Ms. Summers by the work of Heim Becker, a renown brush stroke expert.   

Ms. Summers explains that the mix-up in dating probably occurred due to her purchase of the canvas at a rummage sale. She was less certain about the letters, which contain detailed descriptions, saying only that there must have been a similar painting in existence at that time, and that as far as she knows the letters themselves are not fraudulent. Ms. Summers reports that the completed canvas was given to the model, who at the time resided London. However, efforts to track down the illusive woman have failed. Ms. Summers denies any deliberate attempt on her part to defraud the museum, which purchased the work. 

Ms. Summers is represented by the Kline Gallery of New York and will be hosting a one-woman show there later on this fall. 

~Spike~

I wasn't much thrilled with her new apartment. The loft of the old warehouse had a spectacular view…of the other warehouses surrounding the wharf.  "You know you didn't have to move out." 

"What you don't like my apartment? I am hurt! You know if you stand right over there…I even have a view of the beach."

 Dawn gestured toward the spot about three feet from the corner of the far window. I obligingly climbed on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. I could just make out a rough triangle of rocky shore and gray water. "I bet its real pretty in daylight, Nibblet." 

"You haven't called me Nibblet in a long time. 

"No…you're all grown up now. Grown up with a right vengeance," I repeated bitterly. 

"Come on, Spike, admit it Dr. Lawrence was right the three of us were too enmeshed." 

"But what if something happens? The world seems to try to end itself every fucking May."

"Well, it's not like I can come back, almost as quick as you can make a phone call. She gestured to the paintings hung over the bed: pictures of Buffy's living room, my old crypt, and Xander's apartment. 

"Besides, it was just awkward, you know, with you and me….and Buffy."

I nod slowly. 

"But I am glad you and Buffy agreed to go to family counseling. Doctor Lawrence has been a big help in dealing with the whole master of my fate thing. So how are you and Buffy getting along?

"Didn't think Buffy would go for the group counseling scenario, but let me tell you it has really broadened her horizons. That mixed marriage group Doc runs, between demons and their significant others, has really loosened her up. 'Course I had to search Buffy for weapons the first couple times we went, but once Doc got that antiviolence spell up and running  we've really been able to work on some issues…

"Ok, it's ready. I've tried to include all the details you gave me. When we go through the painting, it should still be light enough for us to see. I didn't want to leave it too late and risk missing her; so you be sure to keep yourself covered up." 

I examine the painting critically looking for flaws in the St. Christopher's cemetery that I remembered. It was near perfect. "Do you know exactly were we will come out?" 

"We should land in the shadow of that big crypt; that's what I used as a focus. Do you think we will find her?" 

"Yeah, I know we'll be successful because it already happened for her." I answered. "Got the chloroform?"

"Check." 

"Let's do it then."

I held my twelve year old sister in my arms for a moment longer before placing her gently on the front step. I looked back over my shoulder at Dawn, marveling once again at the resemblance between them. 


	8. epilog

Epilog 

            From the LA Times

Well Known Artist Responds to Allegations of Art fraud

Santa Monica artist Dawn Summers responds to charges of attempted fraud brought by Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. MMOMA purchased the unsigned work, simply titled- nude on a red sofa, at an auction in Prague this summer for a little over five hundred thousand pounds.  While carbon dating of the canvas places the painting in the late 1800's, further evaluation, performed after the purchase, indicates the use of modern pigments. The issue of the paintings origin was further complicated by gallery documentation that substantiates the painting's existence as early as 1910. The painting was traced to Ms. Summers by the work of Heim Becker, a renown brush stroke expert.   

Ms. Summers explains that the mix-up in dating probably occurred due to her purchase of the canvas at a rummage sale. She was less certain about the letters, which contain detailed descriptions, saying only that there must have been a similar painting in existence at that time, and that as far as she knows the letters themselves are not fraudulent. Ms. Summers reports that the completed canvas was given to the model, who at the time resided London. However, efforts to track down the illusive woman have failed. Ms. Summers denies any deliberate attempt on her part to defraud the museum, which purchased the work. 

Ms. Summers is represented by the Kline Gallery of New York and will be hosting a one-woman show there later on this fall. 

~Spike~

I wasn't much thrilled with her new apartment. The loft of the old warehouse had a spectacular view…of the other warehouses surrounding the wharf.  "You know you didn't have to move out." 

"What you don't like my apartment? I am hurt! You know if you stand right over there…I even have a view of the beach."

 Dawn gestured toward the spot about three feet from the corner of the far window. I obligingly climbed on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. I could just make out a rough triangle of rocky shore and gray water. "I bet its real pretty in daylight, Nibblet." 

"You haven't called me Nibblet in a long time. 

"No…you're all grown up now. Grown up with a right vengeance," I repeated bitterly. 

"Come on, Spike, admit it Dr. Lawrence was right the three of us were too enmeshed." 

"But what if something happens? The world seems to try to end itself every fucking May."

"Well, it's not like I can't come back, almost as quick as you can make a phone call. She gestured to the paintings hung over the bed: pictures of Buffy's living room, my old crypt, and Xander's apartment. 

"Besides, it was just awkward, you know, with you and me….and Buffy."

I nod slowly. 

"But I am glad you and Buffy agreed to go to family counseling. Doctor Lawrence has been a big help in dealing with the whole master of my fate thing. So how are you and Buffy getting along?

"Didn't think Buffy would go for the group counseling scenario, but let me tell you it has really broadened her horizons. That mixed marriage group Doc runs, between demons and their significant others, has really loosened her up. 'Course I had to search Buffy for weapons the first couple times we went, but once Doc got that antiviolence spell up and running  we've really been able to work on some issues…

"Ok, it's ready. I've tried to include all the details you gave me. When we go through the painting, it should still be light enough for us to see. I didn't want to leave it too late and risk missing her; so you be sure to keep yourself covered up." 

I examine the painting critically looking for flaws in the St. Christopher's cemetery that I remembered. It was near perfect. "Do you know exactly were we will come out?" 

"We should land in the shadow of that big crypt; that's what I used as a focus. Do you think we will find her?" 

"Yeah, I know we'll be successful because it already happened for her." I answered. "Got the chloroform?"

"Check." 

"Let's do it then."

I held my twelve year old sister in my arms for a moment longer before placing her gently on the front step. I looked back over my shoulder at Dawn, marveling once again at the resemblance between them. 


End file.
